Actually, I hope it slams you in your miserable ass.

I turned 41 in April. We had a week long staycation as a family during my spring break. We spent a night in Canada and luxuriated in the pool hotel and hot tub for hours. We did the zoo, several family date nights, and Roux and I jumped in the garden and have already gotten to work preparing the land for this year’s bounty. We’ve frequented parks, ridden bikes, and still cozied up for movies on colder nights with a fire roaring in the wood-stove. It wasn’t all terrible.

But this month has been the longest month ever. It’s been fraught with news bite after news bite that leaves my soul crushed and my stomach in knots. I miss going to bed not dreading whatever is going to come the next day, and the existential dread because the future of this country is in jeopardy.

But since age is supposed to yield wisdom, I’m choosing hope over fear (as much as any sound person can) and I’m charting a new path tomorrow. I believe vehemently in fresh starts – the first of the new year, a new month, a new week, a birthday – I discern not. I love the chance to reinvent, recenter, refocus on what matters and the goals I have for myself and for my family. This spring is about writing, creating, cultivating, and finding health and wellness in what I am and choose to do each day.

Admittedly, I haven’t been the best version of myself in a long time. I often worry that this descent will be permanent, that this is who I am becoming with age. That the infirmity in my back will prevent me from bounding across the farm with my young son, or that the miles I used to run will become distant memories as I double over in pain after a short walk. I’m not sure how I got here, I’m not sure when I stopped paying attention or when it all started creeping in. But I know that’s not what I want for myself or for Roux, and even Scott deserves a partner who can keep up with our young family in stride.

Yesterday, Roux and I sat on the floor of the living room and we started talking about his birthday, and that he is getting so much older and bigger. He said he was sad – and when I asked why, he said he didn’t want to get old. I told him I didn’t either and I was so much older than he is. Tears. But then I decided to tell him that there is a secret to getting older – interested, he queried me and studied me as if I truly had the secret to defy aging. I told him this:

“The secret to getting older is to stay young in your heart and in your mind. You can’t stop getting older, but you get to choose how fast you grow based on what you do to stay young at heart.” And then I told him his job was to keep me young by playing, running, exploring and going on adventures together – which he happily agreed to do.

All of that to say this: I choose to be different. I can’t turn back the clock, but I can slow it down by living in the moment and by trying to be the healthiest version of myself that I can be. Here’s hoping May gives me the reset that I need.

-Al