40 and Fuck Off
A rage against the dying of the light
I thought turning 40 was going to be soul crushing. That I would cease to be, sink into the shadows, fade to black. Become restricted and cramped into an ever narrowing hall. Purgatory. A victim. Forced to accept a fate of irrelevance that I fiercely did not want, and felt helpless to escape.
I saw 39 as standing at the top of a tall, black scrolled ladder, leading to thick, velvet black theatre curtains, waiting to engulf me, swallow me whole and erase me. I felt more walls and restrictions and fear on the other side of those curtains. I watched as the sun set in Mexico on my last day of being 39, unable to stop its sinking, and a part of my essence with it.
And I succumbed to those thick, velvet black curtains, solemnly moving forward, my hand outstretched, feeling for the emptiness of the other side.
And there it was. The other side. The brush of velvet receding down my arms as I pushed past the curtains and into… the light.
It was light. It was open. It was nothingness. And it was freedom.
Freedom.
It was not a plunge down the roller coaster track into depths unknown. 39 was not the apex of my ride, my life. It was not a cliff’s ledge, it was not an ultimatum, it was not a death sentence, it was not forever.
There was no plunge, no weight, no stomach drop. There was lightness, buoyancy, elevation. There was utter freedom. The shackles of concern and self-doubt and self-hate dissolved away. I am radiance and light and strength. I am un-fuck-with-able. My care and concern for the opinions of others regarding myself fell away. You have no power over me. Time has not crushed and deformed my true self, but revealed it.
“Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City, to take back the child you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great…”
“You have no power over me.”
#40andfuckoff
