An Unusual Blog for a Usual Birthday by Robynn

*Reader beware: This particular blog was written from the heart of Angst, a small place off the beaten path of Nowhere in particular by a decidedly middle aged woman of stout stature and quirky humour. It’s an odd blog in that the title is very long and the article itself is very short.

A Piece on Turning Forty-Five

It’s My Party And I’ll Cry if I want to

Forty-Five is so Mundane

From Mundane to Meaningless—a retrospective from a Middle Aged Mom Stuck in Middle America and Middle Life

Nothing Exciting Happens When You’re Forty Five

Forty-Five Schmorty-Shmive

At Least I Have My Health

My Trifocals Are Trying Me

What Did you Grow Up to Be?

On Meaning and What Really Matters

When Your Metabolism Mocks

I Left My Heart in My Thirties!

How To Disentangle From the Fetal Position Without Putting a Hip Out

“A Wrinkle in Time”—Madeleine L’Engle had One, Robynn Bliss Has Many (Wrinkles that is!)

The Monotony Of Middle Age

I Remember When My Mom was Forty-Five and She Was Old!

Rolls, Wrinkles and Reptilian Elbows—Living With What’s Real

The Struggle IS Real

When Your Older Friends Roll their Eyes and Your Younger Friends Smile Politely

Oil Of Olay is Failing Me

When Stability Feels An Awful Lot Like Being Stuck

The Year I Gave Up Birthdays For Lent

No Turning Back; Holding On To My Forties But Losing My Grip

Before You Know She’ll Be Fifty

Bravely Going Where Most of You have Already Gone

Still Have (Most Of) My Faculties

Dying Your Hair is Cheaper Than Air Travel

Resolve, Resolutions and Robynn: Facing The Future Head On

No One Is Alone

We’re All in This Together

Climb Every Mountain

Slipping Through My Fingers

(Finally) Facing her Forties with Fortitude!

Yesterday I turned forty-five. To say I’ve struggled with this birthday is putting it mildly. (Turning 30 and 40 were a piece of cake compared to 45!) My aging TCK self longs for adventure and travel; I ache to have a global impact, to make a difference. The circumstances of my life just now mandate more settledness. My responsibilities have changed. I’m here in Manhattan, Kansas. And that’s not likely to change for many many years. Turning forty-five feels like it’s part of the conspiracy to keep me trapped here in the middle of smack dab in the middle of America, in the middle of generations, in middle age.

I often remember a group of adult Third Culture individuals I visited once when I was early into my twenties. I sat quietly, surrounded by middle aged versions of me. There was grey hair and worn skin in the room. There was laughter and some tears. They talked about wanting to travel, finding careers where they could find meaning, resisting buying houses in case it meant they were stuck forever in that one spot. I looked around that circle and I wondered if I would be “over” my TCK-ness by the time I was there age. I was horrified to think these same things would stalk me in to my middle aged years. Little did I know.

Of course with the mundane age of forty-five comes moments of great happiness and serendipity! Who really knows what adventures lie ahead? What hopes lurk in the shadows of monotony? Part of the Happy in Birthdays comes unexpectedly, quietly, long after the candles are blown out.

Yesterdays cards and birthday greetings assure me I am well (and undeservedly) loved. There is grace in the dawn and mercy in the morning. I nurse my cup of coffee, sipping it slowly. Hope rises up in the steam and wafts around my face and through my hair to the places beyond. I’m forty-five.

A note from Marilyn – Happy, Happy Birthday Robynn! You make a difference far more than you know. The best kind of difference to make.