So one day you’re just walking along, making fun of your friends for their freaking out about turning forty (I mean, really, what’s the big deal, it’s a DAY), checking out the birds in the sky (my how they sing!), when BAM!!! You fall into the great pothole that NO ONE warns you about-- yes, the Great Pothole that is your 39th Birthday. 

I’ve never really had trouble with my birthday. OK, that’s a blatant LIE. I have an ill-timed anniversary of my arrival: close enough to the holidays that it usually warrants one gift for both occasions, but far enough away that excitement has turned into foundering and bills have arrived. Everyone always at least pretends that they’ll be totally up for a celebration, but are in actuality usually too exhausted and spent four days into the new year to actually show up. It sucks. And I vociferously complain about it every year to any (and every) willing pair of ears.

But the idea of getting older has never much bothered me. Turning 30 was a breeze-- I was thrilled to say goodbye to my reckless and chaotic twenties and have never much looked back except to wonder why I couldn’t accept at that time that my ass and my face were the best they’d ever be. Now THAT was a waste of a decade. But I digress. I never saw the great existential crisis of 39 coming.