Finished With Forty

April 30, 2015
Day 3 6 5

Well, this is it: my last daily blog entry in my year-long pursuit to finish forty. It'll be weird not doing this each day, but I honestly don't foresee any post-bloggum depression. Instead, I'm already feeling really, really good about not having to write and edit one of these damn things each and every day for 365 days in a row!

All venting aside though, this does feel like a really big deal.

When I began this daily blog back on May 1st, 2014, on my 39th birthday, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, or what kinds of topics I'd end up discussing. In the beginning, I talked a lot about aging and perspective, as well as some other generic topics. For the rest of the time, I talked a lot about my present life and stories from my past, and that too made me think a lot about perspective. Perspective and perspective is everything became two of my most-used labels for the search descriptions online. You simply can't, I quickly learned, talk about 40 years of a person's life, let alone your own, without realizing how much perspective means.

I asked my spirit animal to help me with this on Tuesday night. I said, "I'm turning 40 on Friday, so that's on my mind a lot right now." He smiled and told me two things, each as important as the other. "Turning 40 is just one of many tiny little steps you'll take in life," he said, "but 40 years is also a lot of time to look back on." He was telling me two seemingly opposite concepts that somehow intertwined with each other, and I was really impressed. Yes, 40 years represents a big chunk of time, and that time deserves respect, but it's also just one tiny little step in the many steps I'll ever take.

So this is it, the end of my journey...from age 39 to 40 that is. I've walked through my entire life through the course of this blog. I've told stories from my childhood, my high school years, my college years, and all the years since. I've shared my thoughts and opinions on many topics too, I've laughed and cried all along the way, and I've done an awful lot of soul searching.

For 365 days in a row now, I've been on a specific journey within my much larger journey, but now, finally, I'm finished. In just a few hours, I'll turn 40 years old, and begin a brand new journey. And yet even though this past year has been so much about me, I hope you've seen how I've tried to make it about you as well, not just by bringing you into my life, but by sharing ways I feel we're all the same, and all so fiercely connected.

My little 365-day journey from age 39 to 40 is finished now, but a new journey begins tomorrow. A new journey always begins tomorrow, for all of us.