By the time these words are shared with ya’ll, the cha-cha-cha Happy Birthday tune will have been sung seven times in 2 1/2 months with my family. And during the seventh go around, this girl won’t be the one singing.  Yep, this time I’m the birthday girl!  Yippee!?!  I love birthdays; my kids’ birthdays, my families’ birthdays, my friends’ birthdays, the gal at the Y’s birthday, and well, yes, usually my birthday too. 

However, as I approach this 40-plus-a-few-more-than-I-can-believe birthdays, I have had to dig a bit deeper than in birthdays past to get my cha-cha-cha on and truly embrace that same Pollyannic “embrace your day – the best is yet to be” attitude.   As probably a lot of you can agree, the years seem to be at a sprinter’s pace more than ever before. I don’t know about you but for some crazy reason I seem to be catching up with the age that I thought only my ‘parent’s’ could be…. 

The lines between the past and the present are becoming blurred (literally) and are running into one another, causing me to lose my memory of where one has ended and where the other has begun but all the while knowing that I have experienced each age, each chapter, each season as it was meant to be.  The words ‘in a blink of an eye’ never really resonated with me or made much sense to me until I’ve experienced it these last, warp speed years.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was planning a surprise joint 50th birthday party for my parents.  It was a great night of nostalgia and celebration for those old timers and their fuddy-duddy 40- something –year-old friends. 

 And now it seems ‘in a blink of an eye’ I have birthday invitations inviting me to celebrate 50th birthdays and they’re not addressed to my parents but to my 40-plus-year-old self.  How can that be? I don’t think of the person I’m invited to celebrate or myself as an old-timer and a fuddy-duddy!  Where did the time go?  Where is it going?  And how can I be getting there so fast?

With all that said, I am still truly convinced that the best years are yet to be and we are all on a merry –go- round so we might as well enjoy the ride.  How could these merry-go-round years be bad?  I mean I’m/we’re growing older in a time where we get to automatically knock 10 years off our age so surely we can keep up and isn’t age just becoming so relative?  I’m sure if you’re in the 50-plus crowd and reading this you’re thinking I’m a pup.  

If I had the chance would I want to go back to the girl or young woman I used to be?  Would you?

I know that I wouldn’t. It wasn’t bad when I was there but knowing what I know now, experiencing and surviving the growing pains and the stretching and reaching toward the hope of becoming a better version than I was keeps me pretty enthused and excited about future flickering candles.

When I was a young girl, I talked like a young girl; I thought like a young girl; I reasoned like a young girl.  As I move in to ‘old timer’ status, my hope and goal for me and for you is to do away with young girl thoughts and ways and allow no space for regret, fear, whining and woe, missed moments and opportunities. 

This ‘blink of an eye’ time is a present for you and me to embrace birthdays gone and birthdays yet to be and push toward whom we  want to be and to whom we were created to be.  Make the most of your ride; I plan to!

Visit my blog for more ‘blink of an eye’ birthday surprises. You can check it out by clicking here.

Amy Freese is a life and style expert. Contact her at mailto:amy@designerherliving.comor visit her website at www.amyfreese.com.