Well, this feels like a weird post to be writing! It’s not my birthday. We are, in fact, far closer to my next birthday now than we are to my last, so writing a post about how I feel about reaching the latest milestone seems very odd, but here we are… I’ve always felt like this blog is a diary of sorts. I like the idea that I’ll be able to look back one day and find a record of all these life events, both monumental and obscure, and often find myself falling down a rabbit hole of old posts and nostalgia. So now that I’ve found myself with the odd bit of time to write again, it felt wrong to have some big, glaring gaps where quite major events have happened and I haven’t written about them – birthdays, going back to work, getting married for crying out loud – so much has happened in the last two years that I’ve miserably failed to document, and it doesn’t sit quite right! I mean, I know it really doesn’t matter. I don’t suppose historians are going to unearth my little corner of the Internet one day and use it as proof of how the elder Millennial blogger lived, only to make catastrophically wrong assumptions because I didn’t write a post about that time I wanted to wear a dress but it rained so I didn’t – which, let’s face it, is often the general kind of quality content you find over here at Picking The Day… But still, as someone who’s strange little mind struggles greatly with the concept of breaking patterns and rituals, I find it bothersome. Now, of course there is absolutely nothing stopping me from righting this wrong – there are no rules about when exactly you can talk about any particular event or in what order. Except, of course, for the ones I created for myself, and it’s those absolutely made up and imaginary ones that I find myself battling with right now. But battle I will! Because as much as it fills me with an incredible sense of uneasiness posting things so long after the actual event (despite the fact I know literally no one cares about that but me…) I felt as though I couldn’t miss out on my annual rambling about turning another year older. So here we go again, with me trying to make sense of the passing of another year… (I also just realised that we quite literally just crossed into another year so I could have saved myself the awkwardness of that whole rambling passage by calling this a reflection on 2023 or something… Oh well. It’s written now and I don’t have the brain power to start again!)
I didn’t just turn a year older this year. I turned 40. The big four oh. Something that once upon a time would have filled me with absolute dread. And it remains true that I can’t help but feel a little shaken at the thought. I don’t feel 40. Well, that’s only partially true actually. My body definitely does. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it feels a lot older. My knees are giving in. I’m seemingly allergic to everything now. Even an 8 hour sleep, rare as that is, does little to ease the weariness in my bones. And for the first time in my life my once 20:20 vision is failing and I have a pair of prescription glasses in my handbag that I cart to work every day only to largely ignore. So yeah. In some ways I can tell I’m 40. But mentally? I can barely accept I’m an adult, let alone middle aged! Perhaps in part it’s the ‘covid effect’ but it feels like just a moment ago I was approaching 35, back living with my parents after calling off a wedding and worrying that everything I thought I wanted in life wasn’t going to happen. Yet somehow I woke this year on my birthday a 40 year old married woman, living in the countryside with her three beautiful children. It’s all I ever wanted, and I’m as blissfully happy as I hoped I would be (mostly), but I can’t quite work out how and when it all happened? I often feel as though I am some sort of imposter, a cuckoo hiding in plain sight, nestled in someone else’s life. How is it that I, walking catastrophe that I am, have managed to find a person that not only puts up with me, but wants to be with me everyday, apparently forever? How am I considered competent enough to be the main caregiver to three other humans? Every now and then, while completing some mundane but ‘adult’ task like prepping the kids lunches, completing school forms or renewing the dog’s insurance, I wonder at what point the real owner of this life is going to come back and claim what is rightfully theirs and send me on my merry way?
But while I fear there will always be a sense of anxiety creeping around in the background for me, the thing I can’t help but celebrate is that my fears no longer centre around me never having the things I so longed for, more so those things being taken away from me, and as much as that’s an alarming thought I battle with daily, it’s kind of a nice anxiety to have, in a way! Long gone are the days when I felt as though I was waiting for my life to start. Somehow, almost without me noticing, that life began and the calming effect it’s had on me is remarkable. It feels like such a relief not to be constantly wondering how and if I will ever overcome that sense that something is missing, to not feel like I’m constantly scrabbling towards some unachievable goal. There is still much I hope I achieve in life of course, but if I don’t I’m more than happy with my lot. And while life as a mum is pretty all consuming, it feels like a weight has been lifted and I have one less thing to worry about, and I can’t tell you what a welcome relief that is, because my brain is very good at filling itself with worry… I worry pretty much constantly about the children and whether or not I’m doing them justice. I worry about our house, our finances, work, my health. It’s rare, to be honest, that I don’t struggle to drop off at night or wake in the small hours, my mind all busy with thoughts and fears about something. I waited so long and yearned so hard for the life I now have that it seems cruel this first part of establishing ourselves as a partnership and a family has come and gone so fast – I just want to exist in this particular moment just that little bit longer. But I HAVE all those things, I am fortunate enough to get to worry about having them taken from me, and that in itself is cause to celebrate, especially given all the horrific thigs happening elsewhere in the world right now.
And this post really is supposed to be about celebrating, so lets talk about the other things I love so much about being 40!
“But I guess, at least, the main thing is that when it feels like too much, when I want to world to stop or slow down for a minute, it’s so that I can retreat to the safety of my family, to soak them in and be with them while my soul finds peace again.”
My friends – the small but sturdy little group of people I have amassed around me over the course of my life so far has got to be one of the best collections of humans there is. In my 20s my views on friendship were very different, all focused on fun and socialising and having someone to hang out with when not with a significant other. What I know now is that friends are so much more than that. Romantic relationships don’t have to be – and shouldn’t be – the centre of our universe – ironic really that I think a lot of the time we only really see this once we’ve either found one that is healthy or decided we’re happier without one. I no longer view my relationships in some sort of hierarchy but one big, messy melting pot. My friends are as much family to me as the people I share DNA with, and the ones that have stood the test of time I couldn’t be without. There is still A LOT of fun involved, but in this stage where socialising has had to fall down the list of priorities for a while I’ve found so much more value in the way they love and support me, dote on my children and call me on my shit, and I hope I offer the same to them too.
My style – It’s been a tough few years when it comes to identity and body issues – I think it’s rare for any woman to go through the transition into motherhood without all that being impacted in some way. But while I’m still working on loving this new body of mine and really understanding what I think I have to offer the world these days, my love for fashion as a form of expression is still alive and kicking. There are slumps when I struggle to dress myself, but I always work it out in the end, and I feel like I have the confidence to really just wear what I want now without worrying what people think. My style has become more eclectic than ever, straying a little away from the more glamorous, vintage inspired looks I favoured in the past, allowing for all the practicalities that life as a mum requires, but I still have fun with clothes and outfits, and I love that, especially now I’ve fully pulled myself away from fast fashion and towards a more sustainable approach. I still get ‘influenced’ all the time and need to work on my habitual need to acquire new things whenever I’m feeling low, but I can truly say I dress for myself and couldn’t care less whether what I’m wearing is ‘cool’ or not. That would be huge to 22 year old me!
My lifestyle – 10 years ago I probably would have shuddered at the thought of spending my weekends in the park or staying home baking, or even, god forbid, just quietly sitting in on a Saturday night binge watching something while idly scrolling on my phone. In order to prove I was having THE BEST TIME EVER I had to ensure social media was kept regularly topped up with photos of nights out, cocktails, SHOT SHOTS SHOTS and badly spelled status updates in the small hours that were more than likely designed to get someone’s attention (it usually failed – cringe) My 20s were my most sociable years – I was out every weekend and often in the week too. And there were good times, for sure. But more often than not I awoke the next day sick as a dog and full of an existential dread that made me want to hide away for a week. I really do not miss the hangxiety of my party days… I still like a drink. I still like to get my glad rags on. I still want to dance till my feet hurt, sing till I’m hoarse and hug my girls and tell them how much I love them. But I also want to have actual conversations with them, go home at a sensible hour and sneak into my sleeping babes rooms to give them a little kiss on their foreheads before falling into bed and waking feeling relatively fresh. These days cooking a meal with Dan, taking the kids somewhere new for a walk and stopping for a pub lunch or spending a day sorting out the garden while the little ones play is as much a treat to me as any of the big nights out or all day sessions of the past. I still yearn for time away from them from time to time, but inevitably as soon as I’m more than a few miles from them my thoughts turn towards being with them again, and I’m not at all ashamed of that.
The only problem now, of course, is how on earth I find the time to actually enjoy this sweet little life I’ve somehow landed myself with? Since going back to work there has been a definite shift in the pace of things, and while I am very much the happiest and most content I’ve ever been, life as a modern working parent of three very young children is incredibly tough. I regularly feel exhausted, overwhelmed, overstimulated, like I’m just not doing anything well enough and I have SO MUCH more I want to write about all of that… But I guess, at least, the main thing is that when it feels like too much, when I want to world to stop or slow down for a minute, it’s so that I can retreat to the safety of my family, to soak them in and be with them while my soul finds peace again. And for the longest time I didn’t have that. I didn’t have a safe space to run to, and when I tried to picture where I’d rather be, I came up blank. So for that, I am eternally grateful. It makes me feel that whatever challenges life still has to throw my way – and I know there will be many – there will always be somewhere for me to go, to hide away, lick my wounds or just find the strength to keep battling on. There will always be someone waiting to take me under their wing, take the wheel and steer for a while while I find the right track, and I guess that’s what I’ve been looking for this whole time. So if you’re out there, somewhere, reading this, 16 year old me – or even 25 year old me (well, that took some weird Sci-Fi turn I don’t think any of us were expecting…) – chill, ok? Because it all gets good. Really good. And shit sometimes too, but mostly good!
Happy New Year, friends that I’ve never met. If you don’t already have it, I hope this is the year you find your safe place, whatever that looks like to you.
Love,
Picking the Day 
Happy birthday !
🍾🥂
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