Wiping The Crazy Off My Face

It happened.
Somehow, during the night, in spite of anything I could do, I turned 40.

I'm forty-years-old. Forty-years-old! My mother is forty. My father is forty. Grown ups are forty-years-old. How can I be forty?

The good news is, it's nearly 8:00 a.m. and so far I have had no desire to eat prunes or put on a sweatshirt with cats all over it. That's got to be a good sign, right? Maybe I'm out of the woods, but I'm not going to let my guard down...just in case.

I don't want to take the chance that some little molecule inside me has gone terribly awry. I won't do anything that might trigger an old lady response.

So, just for today, I will steer clear of the "regularity aisle" at Wal-Mart.

I will keep the radio off just in case some smart aleck, twenty-something jack leg refers to my eighties music as "the oldies".

I will wear way too much make-up and make sure my blonde-from-a-bottle hair looks just like it did when I was thirty-nine. (Yesterday.)

I will wear a bra that boosts my girls toward the heavens and I will force myself to wear 4" heels, no matter where I go or how much I would prefer wearing tennis shoes. I'm not going to give in to the urge to wear sensible shoes today for fear of some other old lady trait it might lead to. ( I am also going to end sentences with "to" showing absolutely no regard for proper grammar.)

I'm going to hold my ground today. I will battle every single blue-haired urge I experience. If I absolutely have to be forty, I plan on looking and acting like I'm thirty-nine. If I can remember what that felt like!

Oh well, if all else fails I guess I just need to remember what my Daddy said when I told him I was feeling the tiniest bit upset at turning forty.

"You just need to remind yourself that every day on this side of the grass is a good day."

Yeah. At least I'm not dead. Thanks for that, Pop.