This is Forty: Relationships
The frozen tundra that has taken over the United States of late is hard to miss. So when my husband filled up the gas tank on my mini-van, without me even asking, it screamed two words: LOVE LANGUAGE. Seriously he got a lot cuter without even being near me when I noticed the next day that the gas gauge was at full.
That is honestly what being in a relationship at forty is nowadays. At least for me and the majority of married couples I know. My twenty-year-old self would have never placed an emphasis on thinking ahead or emptying the lint trap. However, the me of today finds both of those things incredibly hot.
As I age, I think relationships in general mature and evolve. Or they dissolve because life gets busy, a pandemic happens, and people outgrow one another. It is important to work hard for connections because relationships get better with age.
My Kids
I will always be a mom, but as I enter my second month of being 40-years-old it is hard not to notice how my kids are growing frantically before my eyes. This means my motherhood role looks different.
My oldest is almost a teenager and I have come to rely on her probably as much as she relies on me. We are a happening household, therefore big sister gets the call to babysit quite a bit. In exchange she gets a phone with a data plan and a much later bedtime than her siblings.
Ten years ago I could not wait for all of the kids to be in bed so I could have “me time”. Yet now, I love hanging with my oldest for a while before we all call it night. We chat, we watch old SNL reruns, or we read in comfortable silence. It is one-on-one time that is so relaxed and enjoyable.
These nightly opportunities to hang out more with my daughter are made possible because her dad and I have enabled a setting on her phone to shut it down automatically at 9 pm. Thanks, Google Family Link. I am glad I do not have to compete for her attention when it comes to texting with friends. It is nice to think she would choose me, but again I am forty and understand that I am nowhere near as cool as her peers.
My Work
It has been a really long time since I have had a job that required a commute to an office building to be surrounded by co-workers. Before it was cool, I worked from home. My first long-term career was an insurance gig when I was 24-year-old. With this job came a remote laptop and local territory that meant minimal overnight trips.
As I continue to age, I still love my work-from-home schedule. Especially since my stay-at-home parent status interferes a lot with work. Lately when it comes to my work-life balance, being called away to play Legos with my three-year-old wins every single time.
Motherhood gets no breaks, but sometimes it is even harder to shut work off since I live in the same dwelling as my office. From a writer’s perspective, it rocks because writing ideas and edits are on a constant loop in my brain. I miss the ability to change up the scenery and go to a coffee shop to produce prose due to COVID-19, but I am thankful that my work is always with me.
Networking is also easier the older one gets. A person cannot help but meet other people in the industry. These networkers may not sit in the cubicle next to me, but they are only an email, text, call, or ZOOM away and that works perfect for me. As I get older, my network gets bigger and it is a tremendous boost for motivation.
My Village
Figuring out one’s village makes so much more sense at the age of forty versus pre-thirty. It is because I have carpool schedules, school meetings, work obligations, and neighborly niceties more figured out as an older (and hopefully wiser) woman.
I’m better at asking for favors and returning favors in this decade. The household I am managing is busy, so I need help. Once upon a time, as a very new mom, I hesitated to reach out to others. But as the years go by, it feels wonderful to rely on people and have them rely on me and my family. We all have limits and yet we are all capable of helping. It makes for a balance that is extremely supportive when my youngest has to be somewhere at 6:00 pm and my oldest has to be across town at 6:05 pm, meanwhile my husband and I are already with our two middle children in a completely different city.
“It takes a village” is so incredibly true and I am glad my forty-year old self can recognize it.
Friends (old and new), family (extended and immediate), and everyone else in between gets better with age. It takes time to get good at fostering meaningful relationships, at least it did for me. I commend the people who have stuck with me since my teens and twenties, and I am fortunate for everyone that surrounds me now as a forty-year-old.