september in the san juans + turning fourty.

I don’t recommend turning 40 thirty weeks pregnant. You’re too hormonal and too uncomfortable and too vulnerable feeling and it’s weird reconciling the wrinkles invasively creeping their way into your forehead with the giant belly you’re struggling to waddle around with. It’s just too much of an out of body experience to add a monumental-feeling life milestone.

But…if you are going to do it, I highly recommend getting yourself a husband that whisks you away to the sea so that you can start your mornings sipping on hot cups of coffee whilst you gaze out into the misty tides at flocks of sea birds and smile at your wild haired boys gathering sand dollars and write write write your way out of the blues. So you can breathe the thick, damp air deep into your lungs and soak that favorite ever Pacific-Northwest-in-the-fall kind of feelings into your skin. Salt water heals all. Pelicans bring peace. Hermit crabs remind you that you’re not alone in just wanting to hide sometimes.

It’s not that I have a problem with getting older. Sure, it’s a bizarre thing watching age slowly start to make its mark on your body. Waking up one morning and discovering with a bit of horror that while you weren’t paying attention it crept over your smooth and lovely chest leaving a whisper of crepe papery trail in its wake. Noticing while slipping into a skirt on one afternoon that it somehow planted a couple of those old lady folds above your knees. Realizing while putting on your makeup one evening that it's starting to pull on your poor little eyelids, which genetics weren’t really doing any favors to begin with. It’s shocking really, the things that are beginning to happen. And I know that sneaky bastard is only getting started.

But I also know that it’s the ultimate privilege - to be healthy and on this planet long enough for gravity to start tugging on your jowls. Something that I am genuinely grateful for and want to embrace. I don’t know if any of my sisters out there saw the second practical magic (a movie that’s original VHS was played on repeat at our house until the tape wore thin and was an absolutely formative part of my 90s childhood). And not that I expected much from the sequel but it made me really sad that the actresses in it still looked 25 (albeit a very weird 25). Their locked faces unable to express emotion and their plumped lips slurring words all in the name of beauty. And I mean to each their own when it comes to making yourself feel good - but it must be exhausting to fight it that hard. And personally I think I’d like to grow into a wise wrinkly witch someday who spent her energy on other things.

It’s more that turning 40 has happened to coincide with a summer full of events that have stirred up a lot of emotion and introspection. And pregnancy has always had a way of making me feel, feel, FEEL whatever I’m feeling to the nth degree, which is always really super fun.

A lot of it has had to do with the perfectionism and people-pleasing tendencies I’ve carried with me since I was a child. A lot of it has had to do with feeling judged and misunderstood in parenthood, in womanhood, in life. A lot of it has had to do with people I miss - family and friendships and how distance and time inevitably makes those things ebb and flow with changing seasons. A lot of it has had to do with loneliness. It’s been a pretty strange experience to find myself diving back into this phase of motherhood while almost all of the other women I’ve collected along the way are moving on, stepping into whatever comes next. But despite all of it, I know I’m happy to be here. On this little island of mine. With this growing baby and all my feelings.

I heard somewhere that midlife isn’t a crisis, it’s a chrysalis. A period of deep transformation. A time to take inventory of your life and to edit it. To hold onto what has served you up until this point and to let go of what hasn’t. To finally allow yourself to become the person you were always meant to be. And let me tell ya, these extra hormones have really forced me to lean right in.

For the first time in the history of my forever, I’m having a birthday that I don’t really outwardly feel like celebrating much (maybe due to the fact that I can’t exactly go out and whoop it up with my girlfriends and a bottle of champagne like I normally would). I’ve been much more in the mood for quiet and solitude. But that’s okay. In fact, maybe it’s right on time.

I do feel excited for this next decade. Because I can feel myself turning inward in a way that feels good. I know I’m ready to trust my intuition more without needing anyone else to understand it. To stop asking people for directions to places they’ve never been. To save my stories for the ones who actually want to listen. To quit contorting myself into anyone else’s definition of successful or smart or kind but mine. To reach toward the people I love and tell them what they mean to me. To let beauty become something bigger and deeper than youth. To live a little less concerned with how my life looks from the outside, and a lot more interested in what it is to be inside of it.

It feels nice to have reached a place where wellness is actually about health instead of the pursuit of being thin. Where fashion feels based on what I actually like instead of who I’m trying to emulate. Where I trust that my mothering comes from somewhere deep inside me instead of something I read on Instagram or a comment someone made about my kids. Where I know that building a life I love is enough.

So as I sit here sipping yet another hot coffee, on a misty morning overlooking the Salish Sea, feeling the skin around my eyes crackle when I smile, I’m imagining how good these next ten years are going to feel. A new baby. Big adventures. A deeper understanding of myself. A lot more “let them’s.'“ And hopefully deeper roots into what is real.

I’m so grateful for the ride. For another year. For this ocean, which over the last week has somehow helped me release my grip. And for my husband who has taken the kids every morning so I could scamper off to little coffee shops and make meaning of the chaos that has been stiring inside of me. So cheers to 40. To a sweet little birthday with my family tucked in on a tiny house on the coast. To getting older. To letting go. And to welcoming what comes next.