I’m 40.5!!!
Do you celebrate half birthdays? I am this year! And maybe every year moving forward. It’s one of the new practices I am building in my 40th year, remember, the one where I turn 40 & F**k it with Kindness? If you don’t here’s the link to those thoughts!
Aging with Awesomeness! — Cas Acland Consulting
When I turned 40 this past October I started a list of 40 things I want to do and I had every intention of doing all those things this year, so I stuck the list on my wall and then…6 months later realized half the year had passed and there was still a ton of shit on that list that I hadn’t accomplished. Can you guess what happened next? Yup, the failure tape started and she was loud. For a while every time I noticed that list on my wall my breath got shallow and stuck way up high in my chest, I pictured my day planner full of incoherent scribbles and that grey, mucky feeling of just too damn much started oozing towards me threatening to take all my peace away. Here I was again not even able to do the things I wanted to do, I mean no one was making me do these things. This is a list of things that I think are fun, fulfilling and will lead to me living a fabulous life. One that I have started to share more and more with all of you and one that I hope encourages you reading this to do 40 f**k it kinda’ things all on your own because you are worth it! So, here’s the big question….
If I haven’t done the first 20 by the first 6 months of year 40 am I failing? I mean the math is pretty simple.
And here’s the big answer I found….
Oh helllllllllll NO, I am not a failure!
Well, the answer to that question was buried in about a month of reflection, not so easy, but surprisingly simple when I let it be. The answer is I am not failing, and I still have time. I’m still here and I am still committed to living my life by my rules within this crazy system we live in on this big old blue & green ball. And you also have time and the choice of how to spend it, so if you are tired of reading this now’s a good time to quit.
If you want to know more about my journey because it sounds little like yours, please read on sister!
Are you a failure for not having done all the things you want to do? Nope?
I do a lot, I mean a lot!! And so do you! I don’t care if you have a houseful of kids or pets or inlaws. It doesn’t matter if you are 20 or 60, if you live alone downtown or on a rural property far away from all the people. We all do a lot! My days are full, my nights are full. I am keeping humans alive, a lot of them! I am keeping myself alive, I am keeping my marriage alive and I am keeping all the other relationships in my life alive and that takes time. I am not in a position to sell the house, fly to another country sip local wine on the patio and check all the things off this list in a tidy 365 days. And I don’t want to.
Dear Reader, one day I might want to and this trip might actually fit in to my life so please, if you are reading my words a couple of decades from now while I check in from a pub in Ireland don’t hold it against me that I changed my mind or in any way made a trip like that sounds frivolous.
But let’s get real, that adventure does not fit into my reality right now. So, what is my reality? The reality is my 40 list isn’t even fully filled out. At the current moment of writing this I have filled in 29 things I wanted to do this year. The reality is I have pockets of time for me and they need to be carefully coordinated on our color coded calendar each month. And a lot can happen in a pocket of time if I protect it and treat it as the sacred time it is.
So having a half birthday is a way to keep the celebration going AND give myself space and patience! And it’s definitely a way to be kind to myself. Because as much as the world around me deserves the kindness on my list, so do I. I met a friend for lunch and a vintage shopping adventure (which by the way checks about 3 things off my list…#1 – artist dates @ vintage shops, #2 – play daily, #3 – release my reliance on judgment) She brought me a half birthday gift! I love how well my friends know me! I love how much I have let them get to know me. The real me, we deserve to let our friends know the real us. We deserve the space to change in relationships we’ve had for years. Sometimes I feel that we worry too much that if we let ourselves really be seen in friendships that have spanned a decade or more that they will leave us, they love us for who we show them and they won’t love us if we change that, but we are denying these people that we love the chance to really know us and we are denying them the chance to learn from our bravery that it’s ok for them to really be them too. Sorry I went off a little there but I have fallen in love with my friendship with this women so much over the years. We met on a weekend full of beer bongs and drunken fireworks and years later we are coming together with a twice monthly schedule of digging into our hearts and minds and sharing our stories of struggle and success. Allow yourself to change, to want more. To put scary things on that list!
The truth is I know I am not failing; it doesn’t take me long to look around and see the abundance. To use the magic of my mindset to flip the script and realize that I actually truly do believe that I am not falling behind schedule, because spoiler alert, there’s actually no schedule! The most encouraging realization that I uncovered is that I am going to be in my 40s for 10 freakin’ years! That means I’ve got 9 ½ more years to rock this! Maybe if I didn’t have all of the things that my life is filled with; family, friends, food, fun and fabulousness I could put my head down and check all those adventures off in the next 6 months. But my head would be down, getting the things done and I wouldn’t see a damn thing. No good, no good at all!
Checking things off the to do list isn’t always the goal. Stepping into the slowness that lets me check in with my intentions before, during and after an experience is the ultimate goal here. Breathing through the fear that some of these experiences will bring is the goal. I want my eyes, ears, and heart open during these adventures so that my 4th decade is overflowing because I’ve filled and protected my pockets of sacred time.
And I’ve got it, time. I am trying to refuse the worry of getting it all done before the time runs out. The clock is mine, the calendar is mine, the control is mostly mine. It’ll take teamwork and trust but I’m going to be 40 for 10 years so I’ve got time to practice those things.
The world is out to rush us, to send us up the ladder of accumulation and accreditation. Don’t help it. Stop climbing the ladder and go climb a tree! Oh that’s a good one, go climb a tree…just wait I gotta’ add that one to the list! Ok, I’m up to 30!
I am accepting adventure ideas, for real, if you think there is something that I should try in my 4th decade please post it below in the comments. My new goal is to finish writing my list before I turn 41…I got 6 more months!
You can grab the template for the list I used right here! And you can used it at any age! Give yourself time, it’s not all about squeezing it into a year of get ‘er done. I believe it’s more about protecting the time you need and if that’s a decade protect that! Lean into that! You deserve this!