I was reading a magazine and one of the regular features were short profiles on women who’ve accomplished great things after forty. This month it featured a woman who had gone on her first solo climb after her husband’s death. They had always climbed together and reached their first mountain peak in 1993; but it wasn’t until 2004, after his death, that she made her first solo trek. For that climb, she returned to the mountain they’d first climbed together, but this time it was to scatter his ashes.
I thought that was a fitting tribute to her husband, as well as a meaningful first after forty. It got me to thinking about some of my firsts after forty and although none of mine could be called life-changing, they’re still firsts, never to be repeated.
A big sense of accomplishment came for me on the day I watched my daughter receive her high school diploma. It was like seeing an eighteen year work in progress finally get completed. That was also the year my son began his upcoming years of education. To see him just beginning the adventure his sister was completing, was an instant replay for me. I worried I wasn’t going to be up for the next go-round, but I find I’m handling it with a lot more patience and wisdom than I thought I would.
The fragility of life is also more noticeable after forty; my mother’s bypass when I was forty-one made me realize that she wasn’t as indomitable as I thought she was. My mom is no pushover and to see her in a hospital bed, surrounded by tubes going in and out of her body, her face as pale as the sheets she was lying on, and seeing the tears of fear in her eyes, at how close she’d come to death, left me shaking at just how frail life really is.
As I approach the halfway mark of my forties, I’ve been giving some thought to what I’d like to do to celebrate that momentous occasion. I could learn to ride a motorcycle; those who own them can’t seem to stop obsessing about the freedom and openness they feel while powering down the highway on their two-wheeled chariots, why not give myself a taste of that freedom? I could go for a hot-air balloon ride or learn to scuba-dive. How about taking a leap out of an airplane and then floating gracefully back to earth? Bugee-jumping? Snow-boarding down a mountainside, or a simple tattoo?
Maybe I should just be thankful to have made it to forty-five with my body and mind intact. I mean, forty-five is an accomplishment all in itself. It’s a first I’ll never do again and it should be something to celebrate. The simplest way to celebrate it would be to have something I’ve never had before...an upside down pineapple cake with pistachio ice cream (yes, I’ve gone all these years without ever having either of those concoctions pass through my lips). There’s always a first time for everything.
