Choosing to Stay

In one hour, I will be turning 40.

People (the ones over 40 anyway) keep insisting my life is just beginning.

I believe them in the sense that there are adventures still in store for me, joys yet to be had, and a singular freedom in caring less about what people think than I used to. But its also true that my hair is not going to stop going gray or disappearing from the places I want it to remain so it can flourish in places I didnt even know hair could grow.

I cant undo the weather-induced aching in my joints, the bags under my eyes, or the wrinkles starting to line my forehead.

But more than anything, what I feel on the eve of turning 40 is grateful to still be here to experience it all: the good, the bad, and the inbetween.

I keep thinking about the friends Ive had who wont ever get to obsess over the bags starting to form (and linger) under their eyes or the wrinkles now creasing their brows, the friends who chose to make an early exit from life.

Tonight, as I take an honest look at my reflection in the mirror: gray hairs, wrinkles, sleep-deprived eyes, and all -- I see someone who wears the undeniable markings of 39 trips around the sun.

And I try to imagine the way those friends might feel about having a chance to get gray hairs and wrinkles. I try to imagine the way those wrinkles would have curled around their eyes when they smiled. I imagine the many reasons they would have had to smile over the years leaving little lines at the corners of their mouths as evidence of each small happiness.

My life hasnt turned out the way Id planned. (Most peoples dont.) But I do get to be here, living it. That wasnt a guarantee. There were times I made choices that put me at risk of losing it. There were times (too many of them) when I also wanted to opt out of life. Arriving at 40 has helped me understand something: all the sorrows -- the ones I was sure would undo me -- have instead given me the gift of being able to see others clearly in their own pain, to hear their stories without judgement, to love them through the darkness until a pinhole of light appears -- and it will.

When I remember where Ive been and consider the grace of still being around to feel the sun on my face, the status of my hair reallocation stops mattering as does the number of likes I get on social media or the attempts I make to win some inane comment war with my conservative cousin.

Encountering the irreversibility of lifes sudden ending has a way of bringing one back to the business of living it.

If my friends who are no longer here could come back for one day, I feel confident they wouldnt spend it online. I imagine they might do the same thing most of us would if we knew we only had one day left: they would go outside. I imagine they would pause to look up at the vast, empty sky. I imagine they would close their eyes as the warmth of the sun reached their face. And they would smile. They would hold the hands of the people they loved and tell them all the things they wished they could have said while they were here.

So today, in their honor, I will step outside and stand in the sun. I will turn my face toward the sky. I will hold the hands of the people I love, including the ones who arent hand-holders. I will look into their eyes and tell them the truth about the person I see looking back at me.

If theres anything these 40 years have taught me, it is to say the things that need to be said in the moments were given to say them. Those moments, we will one day realize, are the cracks through which the light shines through. And in those moments, we will see: we are each others way out of the darkness.