My Fortieth Birthday

I am planning my own fortieth birthday celebration.

When I tell friends of my plans, some of them are surprised - because they can't believe anyone would "celebrate" turning 40.  It highlights for me what a different planet I am living on.

I am not really celebrating turning 40, because I couldn't care less about that. I have hardly celebrated any of my adult birthdays. I don't care about getting older because at this point, I know age is just a number, the superficial aging has already started.  If anything, getting older just means getting closer to Maxie. I feel not one ounce of sadness about getting older. I have much bigger things to be sad about...like my losing my baby.

What should really be surprising, and what is surprising to me, is that I have come to a place in my grief where I actually want to celebrate anything other than Mo.  It speaks VOLUMES about the resilience of the human spirit - of MY human spirit.  To be clear, it is not something that happens naturally, it is a choice that I make every morning.  It is a choice that I continue to make throughout the day, all day long.  I choose to celebrate life because I know all too well how short and fragile it is and how extremely special and precious it is.

My fortieth birthday celebration will be more like a "coming back to life" party in my mind.....not in spite of Maxie but in some ways BECAUSE of Maxie.  Life without him is hard every second - all of the time.  And, at the same time, the small joys - the laughs, the victories, the love, the friendships, the truly lovely moments - they don't go unappreciated anymore - they are life - they are what I am celebrating now and what I will be celebrating when I turn forty this November.