Black Friday

Today is Black Friday. You might think of Black Friday as a day in the late 1800s on which there was a great deal of financial panic, or perhaps you associate it with WalMart sales. But no, that’s not the Black Friday I’m talking about.

This Friday, this Black Friday is my fortieth birthday. The day has finally arrived! I can assure you that I haven’t been looking forward to this day. I know, age is in my head and I’m only as young as a I feel and all that good stuff (by the way, three weeks ago, I started working out with a personal trainer, and I’ve been so stiff and sore that I can assure you, I’m feeling my age).

But there is something about forty that really gives a girl reason to pause. That number just seems so much older than I feel. As I was growing up, that was always the number I associated with a grown up, a “mature adult”. And I still can’t see myself as a mature adult. I still feel like a (stiff) young person. But forty, like 21 is such a landmark birthday. It is one a person needs to stop and notice.

At least I have the good fortune of being able to celebrate my fortieth in the very best possible way. At noon, I’ve set up a 1 ½ message for myself (see ‘stiffness associated with personal trainer’ above), my darling husband bought tickets for Cirque du Soleil tonight. Anyone who knows me knows I’m absolutely nuts about Cirque du Soleil- NUTS, not-right-in-the-head-crazy for Cirque du Soleil. And they just happen to be performing here in Seattle. Such amazing luck. After Cirque, we will go out for a late dinner at some delicious restaurant downtown, then home to bed.

The next day, we will head out early to go to Roche Harbor. Then on Sunday, the Grand Tour begins and I’m on a beautiful yacht for a three week trip up the Inside Passage. Now how could a person have a more incredible start to forty? Am I not the luckiest grown up ever?