Day 30: TEN DAYS

TEN DAYS UNTIL THE BIG DAY! The words flashed across the screen on my phone. About one year ago, I set up a countdown on my phone for my birthday and the reminder was set for ten days out. My how a year flew by!

Remember when you were a little kid and being a grown up seemed like FOREVER away from 5 or 6 or how ever old you were at the time? I couldn't imagine turning 13 and being a teenager for the first time. And then I wished away time until my 16th birthday when my dad showed up at school in the silver Chevy Citation he'd bought for me. (He got it at a place called "Rent-a-Wreck." I wrecked in two weeks later.)

Eighteen was only significant because I got to vote in my first presidential election that year. I voted for the first George Bush. I thought I was a Republican back then. And of course I was an adult so if Pat Baker asked me to run away with him in his Mitsubishi truck to chase his dreams of playing professional soccer, I would be allowed to MAKE MY OWN decision to go.

Twenty-one came too soon. My college basketball team, along with the men's team, took me out that night. We went to Hacienda and John Ross bought me a cement mixer. My biggest accomplishment after that was not throwing up. Once you hit twenty-one the big milestones of life are 30, 40, 50... The birthdays that come every ten years. But there aren't any real expectations for those birthdays except that they won't come any time soon.

Then one day, you are awakened by tiny bells and a message that blasts TEN DAYS UNTIL THE BIG DAY. And it's only ten days until your 40th birthday.