Birthday Eve & my final #40to40 post (time to put my feet up!)

I'm a big kid at heart, as you all know and if there is anything more appealing than a birthday it is the anticipation of one (if counting it down from forty days out wasn't proof enough of that). It's a bit like the magic of Christmas Eve when the possibility of what may happen hangs in the air like fairy dust. I love these moments, they are for the dreamers, the make believers and those for whom whatever the figures say in the morning choose never to grow up.

When I started my #40to40 Matt (whom I think thought the idea quite self indulgent at the time) said to me, "you do realise that no matter what you do, you'll still wake up on 10th June and be 40" (though up a tree top on 16th May it seemed less than likely I'd actually make my birthday alive). He was right of course, but I was never meaning to avoid the inevitable only to prepare for it and while I don't feel mature enough to be it - I am happy to accept it will be.

My thirties didn't go to plan (show me a life that does) but they have taught me the most of all the decades of my life combined. And while some things I would not have chosen to experience, all have brought me to the realisation that I'm happy with where I am and who I am right now and in life you can't ask for much more than that. In fact it is at such times you should celebrate, be indulgent and frivolous for it is the memories of such joyous times that will light your way in the darkness should you ever need to see your way back again.

My #40to40 quest officially ends here, I'm not as yet sure what it all means (if anything) but I can assure you it was a lot of fun. I am very grateful to all who took part in it with me and gave of themselves and for all those who were with me in spirit and shared my daily experiences on here. To my 30's I bid a fond farewell, I'm ready for my 5th decade to start now!!

I leave you with a quote from:

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed 

“It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn't have to know. That is was enough to trust that what I'd done was true. To understand its meaning without yet being able to say precisely what it was, like all those lines from The Dream of a Common Language that had run through my nights and days. To believe that I didn't need to reach with my bare hands anymore. To know that seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough. That it was everything. It was my life - like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.”