Release Announcement: ND version 4.0

Oct 22, 2009

Today is a day I’ve looked forward to for 20 years. I always thought that 40 was when you finally became a real adult. In my twenties I felt like an imposter and feared that at any moment someone would figure out that I was only passing as a grown-up. Things started to click into place for me in my 30′s, but that was the decade during which I came face to face with and also learned to embrace those things in life which can never be understood.

But today I am 40.  I’ve always loved my birthday, but this one is special.

As is my own little tradition, I’m working on a list of my personal new year’s resolutions. In thinking of that I’ve had a profound realisation: I am fortunate and profoundly grateful.

My husband of more than eight years makes me incredibly happy. Even though we live and work together 24/7, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been angry with him (and vice versa). We’re both strong, spirited people, but our relationship is just easy. With a few bad prior relationships under my belt, I know what a blessing that is.

My son is healthy and happy, and for all his teenager-ness, he’s not embarrased to hug me when I need it or dance goofy dances in the kitchen, or sit down and play video games or just talk about life. I’ve seriously lucked out in the family department.

I’m very close to my parents still, and I know what that is worth. I have too many friends who have either already lost their parents, or who were never able to overcome a painful rift.

I live in the best place on earth.

I have two dear friends (Yes, I mean YOU, Jill and Carisa) who are strong, spirited and beautiful women who know how to make me laugh until I cry, give me a shoulder when I need it, and are always quick to offer to send flaming bags of poo to anyone who so much as gives me a dirty look.

I have a realm of friends, some new, like my WAG friends and Matt and Anna, Mollie, Katharine, Marsha  some old friends, like Kiersten, Jenny and Amy, Herb, John, Ute and Rhonda, Peter and Andreas… the list goes on and on and on.  And ON. My brothers are always there for me, no matter what. We all have very different perspectives on life, but that never gets in the way of what’s important.

So my lungs are heavy, my heart is weak, my adrenal glands don’t like me very much, my immune system is considering joining the coup, my blood pressure is up and down like a tart’s drawers, and my hands and feet have decided to entertain the masses by strobing black to red to white to blue like a disco ball. I’ve been forced to face my mortality in a way most 40-year-olds probably haven’t. Some days I feel about death the same way a cat feels about being shoved into the toilet.

But some days… like today, for example, I feel like my life has been more than anyone could possibly ask for. If I died today, I would die happy. That being said, I have an awful lot to live for.

I just want to thank you all, and let you know that I saved a bit of my birthday cake for you.

Love,

ND (version 4.0)