Why I See Getting Older As a Gift

At the ripe ol’ age of 31, I have a lot of friends who recently turned 30 and a few on the brink of 40. When my turn came, there was a celebration that spanned across an entire week and several states on the east coast.

There weren’t any tears, sad mumblings about my youth slipping away, or feelings of depression that I was getting older.

Instead, on my actual birthday (July 22, FYI, 8 shopping months left), there were a lot of Sally O’Malley impressions with me shouting repeatedly, “I’M 30! And I can KICK!”
(Thank you, Esco, for being one of the only people who got the joke when I retold the story a few days later.)

The timeliness of this blog entry is obviously not due to my birthday, as it’s currently November, but because last month marked the 10th anniversary of my cousin Josh’s death from leukemia. He was only 14 when he died, but he had been sick for about five years leading up to that. A lot of time spent in hospitals and in bed rather than running around the playground and sleepovers with friends (or, in the case of my boyfriend, throwing rocks at friends).

Although he and I weren’t very close (I was in high school and college when he was in grade school), I thought (and think) of him often when faced with new adventures. Sure, I would go on a cruise with my friends because it seemed fun, but I would also go because a little boy would never get to go on a cruise with HIS friends. It’s sort of my way of saying, “You didn’t get the chance to do this, so I’m doing this for both of us.”

At some point along the way, I became grateful for simply being alive, regardless of the ups and downs, the heartbreak, the sadness, or new wrinkles. I consider myself fortunate to have adopted this mindset, as it’s really made getting older a much wiser, more positive experience rather than one fraught with fear and panic about jiggly Oprah arms and chin hair.

So every year on my birthday, I spend time (there is at least one, 6-hour-drive so I have the time) thinking about new friends I’ve met over the past year, the adventures I’ve had, new restaurants I’ve tried, places I’ve been, lessons I’ve learned, and how much I’ve leaned on my closest friends and family (and they on me).

I’m not only not upset about getting older, I’m proud of it. Because it means for some reason, I’ve been given the gift of another year of life to see what kind of shenanigans I can get into and so one day, when it’s my time to go, people will say, “Man…that Heidi…she really lived each day to its fullest.”