We drank, we danced, we kissed and tried to enjoy the fact that our daughter was two and that we could finally have some time alone. We overindulged a bit and the sweet hangovers that followed reminded us that we are no longer twenty, in fact I was entering my last year of my thirties. Next springtime, when the trees will flourish I’ll turn forty. This thought lingered around, creating space for introspection and making me ask myself:
“Am I sad now that my thirties are over?”
Surprisingly, I’m not. In reality, I’m grateful for a decade of life that brought me fulfilled dreams, love, a family and a daughter. It also brought me failure, anxiety and awareness of my own fragility, but also of human impermanence in general. This awareness taught me to look at life with honesty and to accept it as it comes. Of course, a subtle melancholia follows me around and I enjoy its presence, but I don’t delve into it. I try to stay present and appreciate who I am today, as I finally love myself the way I am.
“Am I afraid of aging?”
I always regarded myself as an old spirit, wandering the Earth. Hopefully aging will just bring my body in tune with my soul’s vibration. Paradoxically I do fear witnessing the decay of my body or my mind, seeing it broken down, raw fragility. This is probably the reason for which, in the last couple of years, I’ve become slightly obsessed with my lifestyle choice, from the food I eat, to the quality of my sleep but also the people I hang out with. Maybe unconsciously I’m just trying to cheat this natural process, to resist it.
“Or of a mid life crisis?”
If today I sound like a very down-to-earth kind of person that’s because I had my share of existential crises. In fact, they started very early in my life, probably already back in my high-school time when my faith and my fear of loss clashed for the first time. They returned stronger than before in my late twenties and early thirties and they made me questioned everything from my relationship with my parents and my partner, to my faith and my role in the world. Both times I turned overdramatic and I lashed out with bitterness at everyone and everything around me. Fortunately, in time, I’ve learned to reap the benefits of such crises as they brought me clarity eventually, but also the capacity to maintain my composure in the most difficult times. As years passed I also learned to relax in-between crises and to allow myself to slightly drift away from everything and everyone that would make me see the world in a gloomy perspective. What always helped, in this regard, was focusing on being and cultivating compassion.
“Will it be difficult to be a “not so young” mom for a very young child?”
My daughter will be three years old next year. A toddler. Right now, we are both passing through what is known as the “terrible twos”. She screams at the world, while I try to show her that I am what I’m preaching. I need thus to be gentle, when I ask her to be gentle, and brave, when I ask her not to fear. She is my guru, the master who changed me for the better. In front of her I must be honest and own who I am.
“What do I expect from my 40s?”
I would like to pass through my 40s with grace. To have more understanding for everything that comes my way, regardless of its nature. To find poetry in the simplest things of life. To forgive easily. To love and trust more. To spend enough time with my daughter so she would never have to miss me. To hold my parents’ hands. To live and breathe and rest.
By: Ana-Maria Dobre
