And now I'm 40!

I'm 40 today - well, yesterday and the day before too but when I wrote the last post I was a mere 39 years old. "What an F-in' year for Stef with an F " has been my tag line - Fire, Forty, scared to ask what else starts with the letter F.

When Mike turned 40 I had a big surprise party for him, it was a lot of fun but I gave strict instructions to him (months ago) not to do the same for me. I did intend to celebrate this milestone birthday but I don't really enjoy being the center of attention (surprised?) I am always concerned that my reactions may be mis-interpreted so I'd rather not have a bunch of people waiting to see what I will do or say and then have them jump to the wrong conclusion about my expression or body language. I've hear that at 40 you stop worrying about what other people think but it's not true of me just yet - though my concern is more for their feelings than what they think of me so maybe that doesn't come til 50.

As you can probably imagine, or may know because I've told you in person, I am not in the mood to celebrate. Not because I'm 40, not just because of the fire, but because I am emotionally confused - that is not a celebratory emotion and I don't want to fake being happy out of fear that someone will worry that I am "not ok". Honestly, I don't want to fake anything. But it's hard to be real when how I feel in one moment, isn't necessarily the same in the next. "She sounded bad to you? She sounded great to me. How is she really?" Really...sometimes when I laugh, I start to cry - how do you explain that to someone when you don't understand it yourself? I'm a little to old to blame it on puberty so, I guess I've just been trying to avoid the situation all together out of fear of it being mis-interpreted.

I did have a private party the other night though. Some wonderful friends got together and collected e-mailed notes from people who are near and dear to me and bound them together in a precious book that I poured over, all alone, late the other night. It made me laugh and cry - not like the crazy person I described earlier, but like a person who has lived a great life filled with amazing people who love her; who has experienced joy and grief - of her own and shared. And it reminded me that it isn't "real" to be constant with emotions. It's real to cry when your house burns down. It doesn't mean that you aren't ok. It doesn't mean that you don't believe God has a plan or that you don't trust Him to make something good of it. It doesn't mean that you don't know that everything is going to work out. It just means that it sucks and that sometimes it's overwhelming. I don't imagine anyone who is being "real" would argue that.

So be warned, should you choose to spend time with me, I may laugh or I may cry and if you are really lucky you will get the laughing cry. And I don't care what you think about it, maybe because I'm 40 but mostly because I know God is in control and I have learned that His plan is always better than mine even when I don't see it at the time - btw, He knows I don't see it at this time.

As for our house, I didn't get a new one for my birthday :( ...though maybe if I had mentioned it to the adjuster - ok, no, it wouldn't have helped. It still hasn't been knocked down but we are hopeful it will happen in the next week or two, with which I'm sure will come a whole new set of emotions for our whole family so stay tuned.

And...if you'd like to add something to my b.day book, send me an e-mail and I'll paste it in. There are some empty pages for that exact reason.