I'm 40. What's my Story?

Forty years ago today, at 8:17 a.m. on August 29, 1978, I ended the hostile takeover of my mom's womb towards the end of what has been described as a very hot summer. Please note, however, that Google tells me it was only 81 degrees on the day of my birthday. Maybe that feels hotter where you're carrying around a nearly nine pound baby?

What I believe to be my earliest photo with my parents and sister. 

I can't recall a lot about those early years, but rumor has it I haven't stopped moving since I was born. It's unfathomable to me that I am 40 years old. I was thinking earlier this week that it's been 22 years since I graduated from high school and 18 years since I graduated from college. I still don't feel like I'm a grown up despite four decades on this earth. I have moments when I'm in an important meeting at work, and I look around and think wow, I'm actually in a position to make decisions. I have a child. I'm old enough to have responsibility for these big things. When did that happen? 

With my dad and sister on my second birthday, 1980

Turning 4. August 29, 1982

Earlier this year I read There are No Grown-Ups by Pamela Druckerman who may be my spirit animal. She notes myriad ways you know you're in your 40's including waking up feeling hungover when you've had nothing to drink and knowing most people are as clueless as you are. 

In the book she also talks about knowing oneself at 40. In the weeks leading up to this momentous birthday I've been thinking a lot about my story. While I think back wistfully to 20 years ago, I realize my 20's were terrifying. In 1998 I first became sick with what we now know is Crohn's. My early 20's were marked with doctor visits, horrific medical procedures and uncertainty. I weighed 100 pounds, and I was in a relationship that was toxic. Those years are all an important part of my story, but I wouldn't go back to them for anything.

Should I have warned my college BFFs that I was posting these? Of course not. My 20th birthday, August 29, 1998. You can't see it, but I'm holding a wine cooler.

My 21st birthday (prior to the drinking). I remember being worried about how fat I looked that night. I was insane.

Last week in New York I was telling some of my newly found city leader tribe about how I ended up in Michigan: following two relationships to Texas and then Michigan via Virginia. I felt foolish of those reasons, but I cannot and will not regret how I got here. I have a pretty great life, and if it took relationships with two douche bags to get here, then that's what it took. (A side note: one of the Ten Commandments of the Forties in Druckerman's book is "forgive your exes, even the awful ones. They were just winging it, too." For the record I forgive them but can't help pointing out that they were, indeed, douche bags. I'm sure they'd say the same of me.)

I've been really open in my years of writing this blog about how I've gotten to where I am. But there is so much of my story that's never been written. I grew up in a very small town, but it's difficult to articulate the idyllic nature of my childhood. My brother and I rode our bike's to my grandparents' frequently in the summer and spent the evenings catching lightning bugs and sitting on the porch while my grandma told us stories. During the day we played in the woods and then got scrubbed down in the tub so we didn't get "Ivy Poison" (as my grandma called it). For the record we always got Poison Ivy every summer. despite her and Ivory soap's best efforts.  

I used to go for long walks with my best friend in junior high, and we'd walk for miles and hours without direction or checking in. There were no cell phones, and honestly sometimes I had no idea where we were. But to my knowledge my mother never worried because our world was safe. In the summer we played hide 'n seek with dozens of kids with the entire hill by the Methodist Church being fair game. I remember hiding in the cemetery as darkness fell being both exhilarated and terrified. 

My story includes me getting homesick, still, at the age of 40. I first went away from home to church camp in 1986 when I was eight. I cried the entire time. I was still homesick when I went to 4-H camp in junior high and Governor's Honors Academy when I was 16 (that was an entire month) and even study abroad when I was 20. I recall sitting in a phone booth in Germany sobbing on the phone to my boyfriend. My first Christmas away from home I called my family and cried for about an hour when I hung up. Even last fall I was leaving my husband and son for a conference and had a bit of a freak out in front of the lovely 20-year-old girl who came over to watch my son so I could leave. I still cry every time I leave West Virginia, my sister and my best friend. 

In front of what's left of the Berlin Wall during study abroad, summer 1998

I struggle with empathy, and that's gotten worse as I've gotten older and as I've dealt with Crohn's. I get it naturally; my dad was the same way. Even in that struggle I'm fiercely loyal and protective of those I love and equally dismissive of those I don't. That's an important footnote in my story. 

I tend to misjudge when I need to take things seriously, and I'm inevitably the one in a meeting who throws out a random funny comment. Last week for the Bloomberg Harvard City Leaders Initiative I submitted a bio that was somewhat cheeky (it did however include my professional accomplishments), but it was totally me. I was nervous after I saw the other, very serious bios, but my husband reminded me that it's who I am. The first person I talked to in New York said, "I read your bio and loved it. I wish mine was more fun. I'm redoing it." I am exactly who I say I am, for better or for worse. 

With my aunt 3 months after I had my illeostomy reversed in 2001 (I was 22 in this photo). I was so skinny, and I decided I wouldn't care about my scars. Also my hair was falling out from Crohn's meds so I got it chopped off into this curly situation. 

There's a lot of my story I've written in seven years of writing this blog, so I won't bore you with more of it. I will say I don't have it all figured out, and I don't expect that to change now that I've hit the milestone age of 40. All of these influences - my childhood, my family, my friends, my hometown, my college, my illness, running, my career - have all come together in this weird symphony that is my life. Y'all I'm 40...40. I keep saying it over and over, and it still surprises me. I am not upset to turn 40. I wouldn't change a single moment of this journey. They've all made me who I am. I am so grateful for this life. Two decades ago I would've told you forty was old. Now my perspective is different. I may be older, but I'm also 100 times more awesome.