I begin this post 45 minutes before my 40th birthday. I am also typing on my phone as I lay in the guest bedroom of my brothers house in New Hampshire with my little cuddle bug lightly snoring next to me. This is not how I usually write so I am not sure how this will affect my writing process.

This evening on my birthday eve, I had an amazing dinner with my parents, my daughter, and my brother at Hawaiian Isle in Plaistow, NH.

After dinner, my brother treated us for ice cream at Moo’s in Salem, NH.

Tomorrow I head off on an adventure with some of my besties and my daughter will spend the weekend with her grandparents.

As I write this, I have two major thoughts.

The first is that I am so happy to be done with my thirties. It had been the happiest and the most tragic decade of my life.

I started my 30s one month into my relationship with Bryon. We fell in love. I moved to New York. We adopted a cat. We got engaged and married and had a baby.

3.5 residences.

5 jobs through 3 employers

5 cruises.

5 countries. 8 if you count overseas territories….

20 States.

3 Canadian provinces.

4 cars (Mean Green, the Silver Bullet, the Bronze Bomber…and the Subaru).

I could go on but while this decade had a lot of happiness, but it still ended tragically.

Life was good and then Bryon died and I spent the last two years in deep, profound grief.

I am so ready for a new decade. I am ready for the next chapter of my story.

The second thought is that I can no longerf dread getting older. Afterf seeing Bryon die so young, I truly know each year is a gift.

Bryon will never be middle aged. If you are middle aged, you are lucky.

Bryon always joked that he was an old man in a young man’s body. He looked forward to being an old masn and he never will be.

One time when my daughter was an infant, the three of us went to have dinner at a local diner. We were seated near two grumpy old men. Bryon was amused by them and said that was going to be him and his best friend when they got old.

But know only one of them will become an old man. *knock on wood* because I am superstitious AF.

So I go into my 40th year embracing my age. My wisdom. My scars. My blessings.

But just not my gray hairs.