Turning 40 was well, I would say my welcome to the fourth floor was pretty rough.

Let’s be real, every flipping welcome to adulthood moment has been rough for me, because I go through everything like I am falling through a huge plate glass window in the sky.

All the charts in astro and HD say that’s my gift to the world, so you’re welcome, and also lame.

So here is what I learned about turning 40.

I was suffering from some crazy insomnia from my long covid the weekend my ID said I was turning  40. Really everyone’s solar return happens a few days before their bday astro wise, but let’s stay mainstream, or you could always book an appointment to learn more about your own astro.

More than the fatigue, the rashes, and the crazy body temperature regulation, insomnia was the worst and still lingering piece of long covid ruining my life most.

I used to be able to sleep whenever. No long  nights crying alone in my mind, no I just cannot sleep. I used to turn on a Michael Sealy meditation and right after the mans melodic voice told me not to operate a vehicle I was asleep.

So not sleeping was treacherous for me.

I was dealing with this awful insomnia and came home early form a trip to the ever gorgeous Woodstock,NY in hopes my bed might help. It did not.

However, I hit a yard sale in Cumberland that was so Portuguese and so sent from above that I could barely contain the elation.

The kids were selling the stuff from their childhood home- not a company, and those are alway the best ones because there is always a story behind what you are trying to buy. More times than not they love to share that memory snug deep in their heart, sometimes not even remembering they remembered until they see it in your hands. One final kiss before the item is set off into the world for a new life.

As soon as I walked into this house I was overwhelmed by how Portuguese it was. The plastic covers, the roosters, the flags. In the front room sat this table set I would later learn was called vomit style- Gold, pink, ornate and brash.

The lamps atop them were even more decadent. I would have swallowed the entire room into my own house had I come with a friend and a boxed truck, and not my husband and the mini van.

I knew those side tables, if they would break the set- were coming home with me. So was the floor Tiger eating a snake with sparkling green eyes that google lensed for 500 dollars.

When we left that estate sale on my side of the car door  laying on the pavement was a torn up discarded piece of birthday trash that said happy birthday princess.

What a ghost whink though. In that moment, unslept and elated I would not know then- but I was experiencing the entirety of my 0 year on the fourth floor.

Beautiful things only exist alongside horrifying ones. 

I would retain better sleep after August, but it’s still a struggle bus.

I felt so pumped for the start of my homeschool year in September getting my tiny crew of friends together for picture day in the park, planning trick or trunk dates, going on mineral field trips.

Then My Mom died, and my school planner did to.

I decided to go to Orlando twice for Disney and then Universal, and even if i might be paying for that for the foreseeable future I would do it again in a second to go to Universal again.

Disney was totes lame this time, and that breaks a girl’s heart to say, but you know I keep my opinions real.

I watched my little girl not realize all the air signs in her chart were trying to process her grandma dying as she cried leaving her  basketball team at the end of the season. My daughter before this moment had loved to meet new people and bounce around meeting new people, and now she was asking me how she could maybe get some  friends that dont leave at the end of the season.

I of course told her any friend could turn into a season, don’t get stuck on people just have fun.

But, she is a tiny woman with tiny boob sprouts these days, and she says well maybe they could just stay longer then, and I can’t deny her this desire now that she knows what loss feels like.

On the Fourth floor I really decided I am an artist, and not just because at my moms services one of my dads good friends’ wives said well isn’t she the artist, about me saying we should color my moms urn box.

I decided I am an artist because I always was, its just that these days i’m not afraid to show it, and I know that has a lot to do with my friends, and then I remember how I’m not as good a friend to this circle of love because the fourth floor is still tainted with the debris of my own seasons.

Because everything on the fourth floor is so beautiful, and also so heartbreaking.

I think I used to think you could dodge the heartbreak, but I will promise you that you have no idea where they are coming from, even when you are a bomb tarot reader. 

I will pack up my hope, my optimism, and my never quit attitude as I head into  the next year, but I’m done thinking I can outrun, out maneuver, or dodge anything. The world takes what it wants, and we must just keep moving on.

I am starting to think maybe the best is yet to come, even though it will be so different next year..  I did just learn that adults can have bday parties at Chuck E Cheese Again though.

41 is going to be so much fun.

Because, if there are no guarantees in this life you better believe that I will at least make it the most fun.

My last four days of being 40 and I am feeling ready to pack up the debris of heartache all over my perspective and leave it in the trash can for the garbage truck in the morning. Let my angels take it to the heartbreak dump where it gets transmuted into desires for tacos on sea side cabanas and hair extensions. 

Happy it is almost my 41st birthday!

XOXOXXO