This post was originally sent through my author newsletter on September 30, 2022. To subscribe to my newsletter and receive up-to-date news, musings, and more, click HERE.
Tomorrow is my 40th birthday.
I'm turning forty!!!
I know, I can't believe it either.
All joking aside, I've been feeling really thoughtful this week, leading up to the big day. I love birthdays. I'm not scared to turn 40. It doesn't loom over me. And yet, it does feel like a milestone. Like a time to sit back and take stock.
My thirties have honestly been pretty great. (Aside from that pesky global pandemic...) In the past decade, I became a mom. I've had the joy of watching my daughter grow into a fun, curious, silly, chatterbox of a kindergartener. Meanwhile, although I got married at 29, over the past decade, my relationship with my husband has only deepened. Professionally, in my thirties, I achieved my dream of becoming a published author; I released five books and have another on the way! And I know myself better than I did in my twenties. And I live in a neighborhood that I love, in a city that I love.
So what does it mean to turn over a new leaf? To enter a new decade? Is the goal just...more of the same?
I mentioned that I've been feeling thoughtful, in the lead-up to the big day, and that's partly because nothing about this week has felt particularly momentous. My daughter was out of school on Monday and Tuesday, for Rosh Hashanah. She's also had a cold, so no one in our house has been sleeping well. Work-wise, I've been bogged down with emails for various freelance articles I've got coming up. I've also got a few book festivals on the horizon, so I was promoting those. In a nutshell, this week included lots of administrative work, but none of the creative tasks that fuel me. And then, of course, there's been laundry to do. Dishes to wash. Meals to prep. Groceries to order. Toys to pick up. Errands to run. Standard keep-the-household-functioning stuff.
Doesn't the universe know my birthday is coming up—and that it's a big one?!
I took my usual dance class on Wednesday, and my teacher, Laurie De Vito, said something that stuck with me. She was talking about how to move through her fluid, spiraling choreography with the correct dynamic. Many students were hitting the poses, but forgetting about the transitions. "This," Laurie said, making two imaginary points in the air above her head, "isn't the dance. This"—and now she drew a big arc from Point A to Point B—"is the dance."
The dance isn't the milestones. The dance is what comes in-between.
Don't get me wrong—marking milestones is important! (Even little ones, like I talked about a few weeks ago.) But milestones aren't everything. The dance happens—life happens—in the in-between.
My husband and I are going out for a nice dinner tomorrow, to celebrate my birthday. But that's not the only thing I've got going on this weekend. I'm also supposed to stop by the Brooklyn Book Festival's Children's Day, to promote my Class Critters books at the New York Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators booth. And there's a block party on our block in the afternoon—I know my daughter will want to go to that. And on Sunday (10/2), I have another book event: the Maplewood South Orange Book Festival. And after the festival, we might get to see some friends who moved to New Jersey during the pandemic. And somewhere amongst all that busy-ness, I'll need to do a load of laundry, and pack my daughter's backpack for school on Monday, and clean the bathroom...
All of that is the dance. All of it. Every moment.
And I suppose, as I look toward the next decade, my goal is to keep dancing.
~Kathryn
What I'm:
Reading: Lest you think I love everything I read, this week I started a book that I am just not that into. But! I try not to bash books publicly, especially now that I am a part of the author community, so I am going to keep the title to myself. (If you really want to know, I'm happy to tell you privately, haha.) They can't all be winners...
Watching: "Andor," "She-Hulk," "The Rings of Power," "House of the Dragon"...it really is sci-fi and fantasy almost all the time in our house! That said, we watched the first episode of the new season of "Abbott Elementary" this week. That show is just the loveliest warm hug (and especially funny given that my husband grew up in Philly!).
Listening to: My dance teacher used an acoustic version of Damien Rice's "Cannonball” in class this week, and speaking of decades, wow did it take me right back to my twenties! There was a period of time in the mid-2000s where every contemporary dance teacher was using Damien Rice, and I was listening to his albums "O" and "9 Crimes" on repeat, and feeling all the feelings.
Loving: Raising a city kid. Here she is on the subway, the last time we went into Manhattan. The subway would have blown my mind at her age!
