Turning 40! Embrace it and be thankful!

I am here! I made it another year!  I am 40!

I have several friends that have already been in this age bracket who liked giving me a hard time since I wasn’t quite there yet!  Well, here I am and I couldn’t be happier to be joining your club! I also know several others who have turned 39 several times now!  Shoot some may still be having 29-year-old birthdays for the 11^th time!!

I will be honest….a few years ago I think I would have been joining that “always 39” club.   Even though the 30’s were probably the hardest years I have ever had, something about 30’s just sounds good!   Remember Jenna Rink from the movie 13 going on 30?

She didn’t wish to be 20, she didn’t wish to be 40, she surely didn’t want to be in middle school anymore…she wanted to be 30!

Thirty and flirty and THRIVING!

The 30’s were anything but thriving for me.  I spent a good portion of them just surviving and trying to hold on.  Especially the past two years.  Don’t get me wrong I have been blessed and have had many great things happen during my thirties….the blessing of our now 5-year-old miracle tops that list and I couldn’t be more thankful to God for his faithfulness with him.

Two years ago….On my 38^th birthday,

I was in the hospital recovering from an 8-hour surgery for a double mastectomy after just two weeks of being diagnosed with breast cancer.  It was the hardest birthday I have ever had.  Both physical, mental and even more so emotional.

I was thankful to be alive but selfishly I remember thinking at one point that I would rather just be dead and why didn’t God just take me during the surgery.  The physical pain and the emotional pain just hurt too much.  The thoughts that crossed my mind, the attacks…they just wouldn’t stop.

At that time we didn’t even know how bad and complicated the diagnosis and even prognosis for that matter was.  We were still just shell-shocked and trying to make sense of it all.

Fast forward one year….year 39! 

I was still in treatment, but I was alive!  Two other young moms that I personally knew didn’t survive a year after being diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

God had shown grace and mercy and allowed me another birthday.  I remember at that point in time I promised to Him and to myself to cherish and treasure each birthday I was blessed with!

I would shout it from the rooftops that it was my birthday!  I was given life and was given another year.  No matter how hard or bad of a year it was I was still here and was blessed to turn another year older.

Fast forward another year to the present….year 40! 

I am still in treatment and I recently had another surgery which makes that surgery #6 in two years time so I am still recovering from that, but again, I am alive!  Such a huge reason to celebrate! I really think Satan was trying hard though to attack and make this birthday not one I would celebrate or be thankful for.  He was trying hard to make me not cherish this birthday or day for that matter.

Physically I didn’t feel good.

Side effects and pain were at an all-time high and I was struggling emotionally too.  You know those nasty little thoughts that get stuck in your head….I had many of those I was fighting.  It’s funny too how I can go through and endure so many big, hard things and then how sometimes the little things are the ones used to try and set me back.

Todd had taken off the day which doesn’t get to happen much anymore due to very limited time off.  Mason was off school that day so we had planned to just have a fun day together doing a few of our favorite things around town since I hadn’t been able to get out much since the surgery.

We were going to continue the celebration later that evening with McKenna too.  My most favorite days are the simple ones spent with my family so that sounded like a perfect birthday celebration to me!

Well, that plan didn’t happen as we had hoped….

Mason woke up with 101 fever.  Yep!  A moms job never stops even on her 40^th birthday, right?!?  So we spent the morning cuddling and Todd ended up just working.

My sweet dad though took off after lunch to come and watch Mason so Todd and I could at least go and have lunch together.  We went to one of my favorites that I hadn’t been too since my last birthday.  The waitress takes our order and I give her my selection that I couldn’t wait to eat! (remember it had been a year since I had been there!) She politely interrupts me and says “I need to check but I think we are out of that.”  Sure enough, she came back and they were out of it!  I just had to laugh or I would have started to cry…it was that kind of day and I was bound and determined to still celebrate and not let him win.  A few other “laugh so you don’t cry” things happened that day but I think you get my jist of the day.

All of this to say…no matter what happens, no matter what number you now write on forms that ask your age, embrace it!

Be thankful you get to write that number no matter how big a number it is!

Be thankful you made it to 40!  Be thankful you made it to 50! Be thankful you made it to 70!  So many I have met only pray to make it one more year.  I am included in this.

For now, though, I will embrace the year I am given, and you better believe that when I am able to say I am now 41 I will let you know!  Not only does it mean I get a free cupcake at Sprinkles, it means that I was given another year to live and to cherish…and that calls for celebrating!