Forty-four

Today my best friend turns forty-four. Sorry to reveal your age sweets, but who are we kidding, you look fabulous! I’m older so I get to do things like this! 🙂 I wrote this two years ago, when I turned forty-four, and I thought it might resonate with you. Here’s to being 44, it’s a good number!

As I was addressing Christmas cards, I flipped through my old leather bound address book, a relic of my past that I pull out every December.  At Christmas, I bring it out to make sure no one is left off the holiday card list.  Somehow I have managed to keep this book for fifteen years.  I thumb through its pages and see many crossed-out addresses with new numbers and street names added to its margins.   Today its more like a storybook than an address book.   It records the changes of lives over the span of fifteen years.  Marriages, children, upsizing, divorce, downsizing are all a part of its history.  I see names I do not recognize, family members that have passed on and friends that are no longer with us.  As time goes on, the names dwindle.  I leaf through its pages, and I realize how my address book will soon be obsolete, and how precious life truly is.

I just turned forty-four in December.  As I look back on my year, I have been thinking what makes this birthday different than others.  By defining what this age means to me, I realize these are traits I have earned, and I plan to keep in 2016.

Forty-four is the ability to nostalgically look back, while being completely content where you are right now in your life.  It means going out of the house in heels for a luncheon, but putting Uggs in the trunk for carpool pick-up.  It means taking better care of your skin, and having a love/hate relationship with the sun.

It means not having the bandwidth to deal with difficult people, and knowing when it’s time to move on.  It’s having friends that are a reflection of you.  You may question their decisions at times, but deep down you know what they truly stand for because it’s what you believe in.

Forty-four is looking at your mother and thinking this could be your very last meeting, and tearing up at the thought of not being able to call her everyday.

It’s knowing when to state your opinion and when to be silent.  Forty-four is learning the art of listening.  It’s listening to teens complain about the drama of adolescent life and remembering how difficult those years were, but being shocked at how trivial life was back then.  It means attempting to be an observer, rather than a judge.

Forty-four is having dreams that are still attainable, but realizing it’s going to take some time to fulfill them, probably more than you have in mind.  It’s understanding that there are seasons of life, and having the patience to know things do not always turn out exactly as planned. It’s looking at a chubby baby, remembering that season has come and gone, and then wondering how it went so fast.  At the same time, it’s being grateful for full nights of sleep and independent children.

It’s getting excited when you crawl in the bed at 9:00 PM.  Forty-four is cherishing family time around a dinner table.  It’s the smell of home when you walk in the door.  It’s knowing a house does not make a home.

It’s relishing a few hours when the house is empty.  It’s savoring time alone, but not being lonely.  It’s having a true relationship with God, and wanting to maintain it’s sanctity.   

Forty-four is having a strong, supportive spouse, partner or friend that follows your same core values.  It means solving problems together that may not be immediately resolved. It’s understanding it’s a long race to raise children to be decent, moral adults, but knowing you may not see the prize for years.  It’s placing God as the center of your everything, before each other and before children.

It’s being confident that you are enough, and you are exactly where you are supposed to be.  Forty-four is admiring youth, but not wanting to turn back time to sacrifice the wisdom you have gained from the past forty-three years.

Forty-four is knowing everyone has a story, and all of us are fighting some sort of battle.  Its having compassion even in the ugliest of situations.

Its seeing a Facebook post by a friend who battled life this year and cherished turning one year older.

Forty-four is just that…being grateful for turning one year older, knowing there’s more wisdom to gain, more love to give and treasuring life itself.  It’s flipping through outdated address books, and being reminded how precious this life truly is.  It’s cultivating a heart of gratitude throughout your day, your week, your life by saying three very simple words…thank you Jesus.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Happy Birthday my sweet and dear friend Claudia!

My name is India Kern, and I’m a divorce recovery coach. I guide you through the transition from married to “happily” divorced. I know it’s possible because I did it myself. You can create a life that you love after the devastation of divorce, and coaching is the catalyst that accelerates the change.

You have a choice, to either get “bitter” or get “better.” Are you ready to get “better?”