Yesterday, at our "usher in summer" potluck, a new co-worker of Cap's made the above comment to me. She was pretty astounded. There have been more than enough times, though less and less so recently, that I've focused on the embarrassment, shame, sheepishness of feeling like I've wasted so much time, or that I should have "grown up" much longer ago.
When I was in my twenties:
• I finished college.
• I lived by myself for the first and only time, in Hiroshima while employed by the JET Program and loved it.
• I was told I was beautiful by someone and truly believed it, for the first time.
• Cap and I got together and we whirled through a courtship that spanned the East Bay, Nara, Plympton, before we settled down in Cambridge.
When I was in my thirties:
• We tried to get pregnant for four years and then I popped Kinder out at 34 and Pre at 35.
• We weathered a two year soujourn in Plympton (living with Cap's dad and partner), so Cap could finish his doctoral program while being the primary wage earner for the family.
• We discovered Kinder's severe milk allergy and Celiac diagnosis.
• I held it together while Cap was shut out of an academic position and we moved to Sacramento.
• I ended extended nursing with Pre at age 38.
Lately, I am enjoying a newfound sense of self at age forty. So, even if I don't look forty, I feel forty, and I mean that in the best of ways.
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