It is no surprise to the people who know me that I just happen to be writing this blog on my 40th birthday (with all birthday wishes in the form of comments, emails, texts, gifts, and checks welcome. I am equal opportunity in this way) and that I am writing it wearing the canary yellow sneakers my sister bought me for the occasion.

Circumstances of the past several months haven’t allowed for writing, or to put it more accurately, the sustained thought that writing comes from. Going deep into quarantine, job, homeschool, and the rest rendered me a bystander to the writing part of myself, and after publishing Louisa, I watched August turn to September and then 2021 without any desire to write a word.

I didn’t feel alarmed. I didn’t think it meant anything, and so maybe that’s something. Maybe I am ready for 40 in my yellow shoes.

That being said, can I tell you how it felt one morning a few weeks ago when I had a thought that sent me to the basement cupboard where we keep the half-used notebooks? I wrote the thought, and a few others, and from these came another that perhaps 40 is a time to account. The thought of finishing this notebook felt good, though I felt rusty while my right hand cramped and asked me to please pace myself.

I am rusty. I couldn’t remember my password for this site. Where do I store the numbered blog images that show up on the home page? I had to think about it. And now that I’m writing this post, I’m getting the sense that I’m not writing as well as I could or as I did, but I know if I put this off today, I will probably put it off for a year.

Because at 40, I’m starting to know myself.

There is a time to be present, and I’ve done it well this past year. There is also a time to step back from the present and figure stuff out. I do this through writing, most of which I don’t share because the words fulfill their purpose the moment they hit the page. And then there are some words that nag me until I share them. It’s like they know me. They know I like to throw stuff out – my journals, especially. I have a bonfire scheduled this Sunday to do just that. I think the words in my notebook know.

Still, I’ve never been a fan of what I drafted in that notebook – The Retrospective 20/20. Whenever an older person would see me grocery shopping with TroyBoys and stop me (because it was such a good time to stop me) to say You will appreciate this one day, I always said, Then you take them while I finish up. In my mind, of course. It’d make for a much better story if I’d said it out loud.

And it’s not the first time I would be committing a crime my past self said I would never commit, but in my yellow shoes on Lordy 40 I’m telling myself as I’m typing that it’s okay. I can write what I remember. I can share what I’ve learned. Because that’s what it is – a Write & Share! Not a 20/20, but it does need some branding.

Let’s call it a 40/40 for the 40 of my last 40, and maybe it will take the next 40 to get through it, and that’s okay.

Because I’m 40.