On Sunday I turn 40. Since turning 30 I have:

Lived in Flagstaff, taught middle school, run a 10-k, played in the snow, walked in the desert, touched a whale, wrote a dissertation, earned my doctorate, become a professor at NAU, gone ice-skating, taken a snow-boarding lesson, snorkeled in the Caribbean, started a family with the love of my life, experienced a miraculous pregnancy, earned a lovely 6-inch scar on my abdomen, breastfed for twenty months, changed many hundreds of diapers, taught many hundreds of students, graded thousands of papers, and experienced an unexpected degree of kindness and generosity from family, friends, and strangers.

I have mixed feelings about turning 40. When I was a kid, that age seemed so old, but now it feels full of possibility. The gift of being a late bloomer is the knowledge that the best of everything lies ahead of me, not behind.

“You are as young as your faith,
as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence,
as old as your fear;
as young as your hope,
as old as your despair.”

~Douglas MacArthur