Wrinkles of Life

If you know me, you know I love birthdays. I love making them special, picking out gifts, celebrating with the people we love. I love my birthday, too. Like, a lot. 

But this year, turning 42, I'm struggling a bit as that date approaches. When someone talks about the 90s, I still think of it as 10 years ago. Somehow, they are a lot further away than 10 years! I find more gray hair now, I get tired earlier. I have always been a late sleeper on the weekends and now I find myself getting up at 7:30 a.m. to get to work on whatever the day requires, whether cleaning or groceries. Life is evolving, just as it always has - only I feel like the clock is ticking down. And the wrinkles - they keep creeping up all over and no matter how much I want them to disappear, they don't.

Maybe this is all compounded because after my mammogram last month, I had to see a specialist because I'm high risk for breast cancer. The specialist found a lump she wants checked out, and that breast ultrasound is next week. It's probably nothing, but I know that it could also be something. Which leads me to think about how my mom had a form of breast cancer when she was in her mid-50s. Then a few years later died of breast cancer. My brain starts calculating numbers and that never leads to good thoughts.

And even though I tell myself not to worry, I do. I find myself subconsciously doing things - going through cabinets and drawers to declutter. Cleaning my closet. All things that seem pretty benign but I realize I'm not doing it as fall cleaning. As I'm doing it, I'm telling myself things like "No one is going to want this in 10 years" or "This would be a lot for J to clean up" and it's in those moments that I realize I'm doing it because I don't want to leave a mess for my loved ones to clean up after I'm gone. Because that's what I'm really scared of.

For a time after mom got sick, I didn't know if I wanted kids. It just didn't seem fair. I figured at some point, with our family history, I'd get sick and I didn't want to put them through that. I can't tell you the immense amount of pain I felt losing my mom. And if I hadn't gotten pregnant on accident (yes, on accident), I know that the year she died, I might have died right along with her of a broken heart. Yet I still look at my sweet kiddos and feel a little twinge of pain in my heart for the fear that someday, they'll have to feel that same ache I did. My biggest fear in life isn't dying; it's what that would do to the people I love.

All of this - the lump, the ultrasound, the worries - they are all wrinkles in life. Things that are going to creep up on us, things we don't really love, but things that are simply a part of life's journey. I can't get rid of them; all I can do is choose how I respond to them. So I will hold my head up, I will do my best to not think about the "what ifs", and I will just be the best mom and wife and friend I can be for as long as I can be it.

Things like this are why the coffee visits and emails and chats are all so important to me. I don't want loose ends and unsaid words. When Mom got sick, she quickly lost her ability to speak. There was so much we never got to talk about; so much I never asked her. So much I never told her or got to hear her say. The talks, the cleaning of my closets - these are all just ways I cope with growing older and hoping that somewhere along the way, my life mattered.