This Is (Almost) 40

**All props for this post go to my great friend Samantha Jones Harkins, who referenced this exact speech in her own blog. That post was waaaaaaay back, but it stuck with me and I felt I needed to revisit it myself. You should check out her blog too - because it is awesome and so is she!

www.irunthesetowns.blogspot.com

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So, a few days ago, I was thinking about this radio speech which was all the rage in the summer of '99. If you want to listen to it and get all weepy and nostalgic - or not - here it is:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5NAPZp2w-o&feature=related

I lived in my very first one-bedroom apartment, the only time I could afford not to have a roommate. This foray lasted about 3 whole months, but I put in loads of time decorating that interesting space to be just perfect.  And I have an insane number of memories shoved into those 120 days, including this whole Sunscreen Song. (Why such a short stay? Well, let's just say the landlords were the neighbors and they were intrusive to the point of stalking my every move. Oh, well. You will have that, I guess. Until you decide to move out.)

Part of the "furnished" part of this apartment was a great old desk with a piece of glass on top, underneath of which you could lay out photos or concert tickets or newspaper cut-outs of the lyrics of the Sunscreen Song. I distinctly remember reading that list of things daily, through the murky old glass top. It was just the sort of thing for a 20-something college graduate with no idea of her future to think of as she drove around Morgantown's lazy summer streets, reveling in being aimless and young and free...and broke, shiftless, and (in hindsight) woefully cavalier about important life details. In other words, it was the epitome of what someone's early 20's should be. In my own, unscientific opinion.

But, for all that youthful meandering, the Sunscreen Song was pretty great. And for some reason, be it the sweat of the summer air or the smell of actual sunscreen, it popped into my mind some time ago and would not retreat.

I only now actually re-listened to it, and it surprised me in a sort of not surprising way how old I am now. All those references to being 40? Yes, that is almost me. All those ideas of what my future would hold at 40? Not so much.

I don't even know what those ideas were - but I can assure you, they were not my current reality. And not in a bad way. I suppose I envisioned something less stable and more ridiculous, with far different responsibilities. I am sure the time between then and now seemed a much further distance then than it does now. There are times when I feel 24, but know that the mileage on my soul renders me much older.

And it is great. I know, as the Sunscreen Song told me, that half of what has transpired in my lovely life is chance alone. I am thankful beyond belief for my good fortune. Yes, negatives did blindside me at 4:00 in the afternoon and they seemed, at the time, insurmountable. But I have learned that few mistakes are unfixable and each one will teach you something you did not know you needed to learn.

I wore sunscreen. I got to know my parents. I have more and more learned to respect my elders. I have danced and sung all along the way, literally and figuratively. I have come to understand that life is a marathon and not a sprint and it has released me. I have gotten tons of counseling.

And I have taken a few to look over my past, but not to the point of stupidity. And the best lesson I learned? Ironically enough, it came from a lecturer in a bar review course. (Which, if you know me, will sound like I may have early onset dementia. But bear with me.)  It went something like this:

           Don't look at taking the bar as something you have to do.
           Look at this challenge as something you get to do.
           You are lucky and privileged to be able to do this.

Right. About so, so many things in our lives. Me during the Sunscreen Song-era would not have gotten this.

I am glad I now do.