It’s October.  5th.  Fucking October.  When did that thing old people used to say about time flying as you get older actually start happening?  I guess when I got to the age that I used to call people old. Karma’s a bitch.

Fall is by far my favorite season – mostly because it’s also decorative gourd season, motherfuckers. I mean, really. What would fall be without decorative gourds?  Especially in Southern California where this particular “fall” has been replaced with “summer on the surface of the sun”.  How else would I know I’m supposed to want to pick apples and consume pumpkin spiced everything if it wasn’t for decorative pumpkins trucked in from somewhere colder than here and Starbucks.

Flipping the month on my calendar just drove home how absurd my to-do lists are. On said list (which I re-write on a regular basis just to keep it pretty) has been some version of “write f/u birthday post and Labor day post” since, well, Labor Day. Evidently just because I write it down doesn’t mean the gremlins that dirty my dishes and disrespectfully toss clothes all over my bedroom are going to do it for me. Assholes. Global warming is probably their fault too.

Though many years removed from my last turn in academia, it seems my psyche will always be firmly rooted in the school calendar as opposed to the…um…calendar-calendar (that one that goes from New Years hangovers back to the celebration you swore you’d never revisit last year). Not sure why, but my urge to resolve, reinvent, and reinterpret has always appeared in fall rather than winter.  Somewhere around mid-August I thought about resolving to be more organized and realistic with my to-do lists and commit to writing more often. Unfortunately my brain is no more organized than my to-do list, so without Mother Nature stepping in to trigger that seasonal awakening, I’m mentally stuck in the lazy dog days of summer. I’m not even mentally organized enough to have a point to this post. Clearly I need a pumpkin spice latte. And an apple pie.  And to meet this guy.

Tomorrow is the first day of my 40th year.  I think.  That’s how math works, right?  Since you’re technically zero when you’re born?  Whatever – math is hard.  Anyway….I will be 468 months old (which I will cheerfully inform anyone who has ever told me their child is 26 months).

Here’s the thing…I love birthdays.  Fucking love them.  Mine, yours, that guy in the restaurant hiding behind his napkin and silently cursing his girlfriend while the waitstaff  pretend they want to be singing in public rather than getting high in the parking lot.  I am consistently disappointed that we (humans, not just me and the voices in my head) seem to stop finding them important after 21 unless they’re a multiple of 10.  I’m guilty of this – life gets busy and boring and the time and the energy to make people feel special on the one day of the year when everyone should wake up and say “well shit, would you look at that?  I made it around the sun again without accidentally getting hit by a taxi or falling down a well.  FUCK YEAH!” seem impossible to muster.  It doesn’t help that as adults we seem hell bent on downplaying the passage of time.  Screw that hooey.  Yes, somedays being an adult is just dumb.  Somedays it just doesn’t seem worth chewing through the leather straps to get out of bed.  But we do, and once a year we should get rewarded for doing that 365 times.  With cake.  And preferably a side of public humiliation.

So, for this particular non-milestone birthday, I had every intention of coming up with a clever 40×40 post outlining 40 things I want to do in my 40th year.  An idea blatantly stolen from a blog I read years ago called 36×37.com written by a woman who, you guessed it, had 36 things she wanted to accomplish before turning 37.  But the more I thought about it, the more stressed out I got trying to come up with 40 unique items that amused me enough to write about (that wouldn’t land me in jail or get me fired).  And I really don’t feel compelled to do the typical stuff one puts on lists like this – go skydiving, swim with sharks, win the Iditarod.  So instead I made a list of things I genuinely want to accomplish in the next 12 months.  Some are small, some require a little more dedication.  Some could end up being wholly boring, some unexpectedly hilarious.  This list is intentionally vague and open to interpretation and in some cases will seem really fucking dumb unless you know the back story (which may or may not be provided at a later time for your amusement).  No matter what, it will keep me honest because there are at least 4 of you who will publicly take me to task if I make it to month 480 without memorializing my idiocy.

So here goes.  In no particular order:

1. Keep a plant alive for a whole year.  The same plant.  All year.  This might be the most unlikely item to accomplish.
2. Flee the country (I reserve the right to return).
3. Eat something really gross that I never thought I’d try.
4. Hold sparklers (yes, the kind “we” all played with on the 4th of July as kids) without making a face that screams “holy shitsnacks little baby Jesus, please let me LIVE!”
5. Unplug – totally and completely – for at least 48 (consecutive) hours.
6. Run a marathon.  HA.  no.  just seeing if you were paying attention.  Know what came at the end of the very first Marathon?  death.
7. Sit in a bar and read What to Expect When You’re Expecting while enthusiastically consuming double martinis. Extra points for taking notes.
8. Ask my parents questions about their lives.  Their adventures.  Their families before they started their own.  Pay attention to the expressions on their faces as much as the stories.  Write it down.
9. Watch the sunrise.  Preferably with someone important by my side.
10. Road trip.  No plans.  Fuel, snacks, music.  It’s easier to enjoy the sites along the way when you don’t have a destination in the first place.
11. Make something I’m proud to take credit for.
12. Go to Disney Land with my friends’ kids.  See it for the first time through their eyes.
13. Finally organize all of the photos saved on all of the drives from all of the digital media that was supposed to make our lives easier but mostly just makes it so I can’t find anything ever.
14. Give anonymously for the sake of giving, not for the sake of credit (that one I probably can’t really write about…sorta defeats the purpose).
15. Write my 100th SWS post.
16. Make time to celebrate others.  For birthdays, accomplishments, surviving an arbitrary Wednesday.
17. Do that godforsaken map of Manhattan puzzle that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for a year.
18. Send more snail mail.  There’s nothing better than coming home to something other than junk and bills in the mailbox.

Now comes the really fun part…since I couldn’t even come up with 20 (much less 40) things to do, I’m challenging YOU to suggest (legal) items to add to this list.  I reserve the right to call you batshit and say no, but don’t worry, batshit is a term of endearment in my world.  Bring it on friends! Expand my horizons.  Make me do ridiculous shit for the sake of a good story.

I tried to find a photo of me whacking the sweet bejeezus out of a deranged Snoopy piñata on my 5th birthday, but no such luck.  Instead, here’s a picture of my grandmother obviously resisting the urge to push me down a well after a day at Disney Land in 1980.

“Whatever kid. Grandma needs a cocktail.”

I’ve been sitting around thinking about writing again for a while now. I’ve been talking about writing to anyone who would listen (and undoubtedly several people who just smiled and nodded while making grocery lists in their head).  It’s been a few years since I’ve put fingers to keyboard. I’m rusty and scared that I’m not any good anymore (or that I never was in the first place). But it’s time. The ideas in my head are sick of bumping into each other…plus, it’s not terrible timing as these things go.

I’m turning some pages in my metaphorical book (see what I did there? writing? metaphorical books = life? yep, I still got it) these days and rather than sit back and see how the chapter ends, I’m going to try to write it myself for a change. Or at least take control of editing the content.  It’s a scary and exciting time and it’s been a long time coming.   There are a lot of question marks that may or may not turn into exclamation points over time, but there’s no way to know the answers and I’m (slowly and stubbornly) learning to accept that. Time has a way of doing its thing no matter how hard you try to swim against the current.   On the scale of life shake ups, this one falls somewhere between changing my nail polish and Eat, Pray, Love (though hopefully not quite so douchey and self-involved).  It’s not monumental, it’s not inconsequential.  But it’s amazing and I’m determined to enjoy it.  All of it.  The delicious bits and the sticky bits. I’m reinventing.  My outlook, my understanding, my body, and my attitude.

I don’t want to linger in the past or the what-ifs; to anguish over the things I cannot undo, redo, or the people I cannot change. I want to find the good. And to let go of the negative that sometimes weighs me down.  To let myself enjoy the remarkable people who have stumbled and sashayed into my life and the curious world around me and not critique myself (or others) so much.  I need to learn to say yes…and no…with zero guilt or strings or if-then-maybes attached.  There’s a reason the silly sunset photo-cliché life quote poster business grosses $17 trillion dollars annually [that might not be fact checked] and it’s not just so every guidance counselor in America has something to tape on their cinderblock office walls. I mean, that’s mostly why. But also because a lot of that drivel is true.  I’m blessed in so many ways and I want to experience – actively and deeply experience – this beautiful crazy life.

At the risk of getting all Erma Bombecky on you right out of the gate, it’s time to wear the “fancy” underwear on a Tuesday. Don the sequin mini skirt on a week night.  Eat the “I’m too lazy for healthy” take-out Chinese food off the “good” dishes (unless the good dishes can’t go in the dishwasher. ain’t nobody got time for that).  Say yes to things that scare me. Fuck it. We only go around once (unless you believe in reincarnation, but in that case, there’s a solid chance you won’t come back with opposable thumbs…so might as well enjoy them now).

And write. Make time to write so I can make room in my head for more things to write. Or my grocery list. Whatever, my head is crowded. Someday is NOW! Let the past make you better, not bitter! Don’t forget to fall in love with yourself first! Be the change you wish to see in the world! A bird in hand is worth two in the bush! (why, exactly? Birds freak me out.)

I’m off to plaster my bedroom with kitten posters now. Until next time…