Forty-somethings are twenty-somethings with money. We’re also better in bed, more relaxed and have more or less stopped caring what other people think. As much, anyway. This is the era to re-invent but also call forth all of our ideals from our twenties, even the crazy ones.

My thirties were about trying to fit in. Kind of like my teens. I wanted everything society said I should have. I needed to “grow up.” To be smarter about how I spend my time, to get a real job. To marry and procreate. To have and to hold on to my spouse, my material possessions, my status.

The primrose path was barbed from the start. I forgot virtually every promise I made to myself. I forgot to have a self. If I looked into a mirror during that decade there was probably nothing staring back at me.

But that’s all done now. I’m home. I’m happy and weird and read too much and make ill-advised decisions. I don’t have to hide anything that might not pass muster. Because who is in charge of the muster, anyway? There’s no wizard behind a curtain holding the muster-jar. It’s all an inside job!

Maya/illusion. I’m struggling to accept that we are all one because sometimes I really hate certain people who have been mean and unfair. I hate knowing that forgiving these people is a gift to me and that anything else is poison.

So then I breathe a little bit. I’m the seasoned twenty-something now, finely aged, hopefully wiser, more humble and more forgiving. At least twenty percent of the time.