Forty by Forty

It hasn't happened yet, i am still a few months away.
I thought I would be old at 40. I think because while I was a child, my mother was in her thirties and so a Parent to a child was Old.
Then I met a whole bunch of incredible woman who truly made me see 40 as the new 20.
By this I mean, rather than looking back at all that they had lived - they were LIVING - and more so, had as much to look forward to as one who had just left home - bags packed & full of dreams.

Maybe it was because they had found Vancouver Island, which if you spend too much time living in, too many walks in the Mountains and too many mornings by the rolling waves of the blue wild ocean, you too begin to dream again and somehow travel backwards into all that the world still thinks is kept for youth.

It is not so. The Soul restless or quiet, is timeless and true.

Yet still, 40 means something. It is no longer a time to have a house - a child or a few- a career for life. It is a time to stand on my own two feet, with my head held steady and a warm gentle knowing look in my eyes.

It is a time to begin to live out of my heart.
To listen to all the things I've always wanted to do. Even if I am the only one who knows or sees these things. There is always the Moon that knows at least a little, when I open my window or run outside and spread my arms wide under her glow!

So what is my list.
Well, most of it is my own, because I am finally learning to wait to share the wishes and wonders, because the pressure closes in too fast and the desperation that I will let the whole world down crashes against me once again.

But, I'll tell you that it's just (shrug) really little things. Things like Less is Less. And Who is Really on your Mind and in Your Heart. And saying Goodbye's and Making Room for the New. * Even while I barely believe that there will be a new to welcome. It is keeping and losing and resting and finding.

Right now,

It is this:

#1   I will have 40 items of Clothing in my closet by the morning of my fortieth Birthday.

*Almost every item of clothing I have kept - is because it lets me touch yesterday and hold onto who I once was forever. I always dress for the world I live in. Every place I have lived has clothed me.

Who am I now. 
I am only sure when I am naked.

With my dinosaur onesie coming fairly close :)  but it's feet are warn and it's softness is gone. And while I think of the velveteen rabbits conversation with the horse, and remember that when most of you is worn away you are finally real. (sigh) It will one day be on my list of letting go.

I have 4 months to go.

Cross your fingers for me.
Whatever the heck it's gonna bring up may hurt like hell - there is a reason, the clothes have been going round and round my laundry cycle for years. unseen. unworn. but here.

If buying something new, makes me feel like I will live forever.
Admitting that it's only clothing, may make me face the fact that I am only skin and bones and flesh.
(and YES so much more!) but still. Letting go has more to do with dying then living.. you get there -but only after walking through the empty places with the shock of all that's gone.

I wouldn't be able to handle my thoughts and get through a day, except that all this over thinking passion and sensitivity makes me an interesting writer, maybe, well, i like me - even if the answer is no.

I'm scared and sad and wonderfully okay.
Writing is my most favouritist thing.