I turn 35 today, and my celebratory instinct was to hide myself away in the mountains over the weekend in the company of a like-minded friend. (But with a view like this, I feel vindicated against anyone who would criticize my anti-social life choices.)
Modern life expectancy notwithstanding, I feel I have officially reached middle age. For one, I’ve never been able to envision myself getting old, and also, I don’t have a retirement plan. So death at 70 would be convenient. I’m very practical.
I’m trying to process the fact that in a mere five years I will be forty when on most days I’m still trying to imagine what being a real adult with actual property and insurance policies must feel like. Also, I’ve never felt a strong desire to have children, but what if I suddenly start to? Even if I met someone tomorrow and got pregnant the next day, medically I’d be considered a geriatric mother. I don’t know how I feel about that.
Also, thresholds are changing without my consent. For one, I’m getting grumpy. I have zero tolerance for people who don’t communicate, people who smoke their acrid cigars in the stairwell, people who text and walk (or operate motorized vehicles) without looking up, people who don’t parent their children properly (because I’m a parenting expert), and general poor taste, immature behavior, pettiness and nonsense. Who. has. got. the. time. I’m too busy thinking about cheese.
Speaking of cheese, my love handles are out of control. I feel like my metabolism this year decided to go on strike. Like, it shows up to work, but then it just sits at its desk and does nothing all day. I exercise regularly and I eat the same way I’ve done for years (which is healthier than the average person), yet I continue to discover folds of skin that never used to be there. Do I resign myself to defeat and buy larger trousers, or do I stop eating all the things that make life worth living?
Speaking of resignation and defeat, no matter how many self improvements I manage to achieve, some things are just never going to change. My habits and preferences are entrenched. For example, I will always and instinctively offer words and phrases to finish your sentences. I know this drives some people nuts (sorry, mom). I’d like to think it’s my way of showing you that I’m engaged with what you’re saying. (In fact, if I’m not finishing your sentences, I’m probably not listening to you.) Also, there is undeniably a superior way of doing the dishes and stacking them on the drying rack, and my way is the superior way.
Despite this increase in crankiness and rigidity (or, in the case of my love handles, lack of rigidity), there is at least one awesome thing about getting older, and that is that life just keeps getting better. The quality of friendships, the travels, the challenges, the experiences, the overall random, joy-inspiring, delightfully unexpected moments that prove to me that Jesus freaking LOVES me… they just get better.
Like today. Stephanie and I wandered around the beautiful town of Deir El Qamar and were on our way to the ancient mosque when we were stopped in our tracks by an elderly man who asked us if we had been by his wax museum. (In fact, we had just come from having avoided going in.) We felt we could not say no to this insistent old man, so we let him lead us right back. He asked his equally elderly, nearly toothless assistant to give us the tour (which he did with broken English and gusto), and then he had us sit down for a glass of wine (which was very good), and then he had us stay for lunch (which was also very good).
Come to realize, this man is terribly wealthy and hails from a noble family dating back many centuries. He owns two palaces in town (one of which houses the wax museum), several other estates around Lebanon, and a house in Paris. He’s been decorated six times in both France and Lebanon, and he knows all of the political elite in the country. But he is wonderfully simple, generously hospitable, refreshingly unpretentious, and endearingly frank. In short, it was just another random, joy-inspiring, delightfully unexpected moment that makes life so good.
As I sit here in my beautiful room and type the last sentences of this post, I feel deeply, incandescently happy. I’m not where I thought I would be at 35, but then again, where did I think I would be?
“Traveler, there is no path; the path is made by walking.” ~ Antonio Machado
