The Grass is Dying and Probably Full of Weeds

I’ve had a few people ask me recently how I feel about turning 40, probably because turning 30 was such a big disaster for me, my friends and family want to know when exactly they should duck for cover. Luckily, for everyone (esp. me) I’m actually looking forward to turning 40, mostly because I’ve finally realized that a good share of that stuff the really bothered me when I was turning 20, and 30 just isn’t much to worry about in the big scheme of things. By 40 you’ve pretty much reached middle age, I’m fairly sure I won’t live to see 100 (and not sure I would want to if I could), and as you inch closer to you know “death” a lot of things that might have been important seem, well, rather mundane. “Ouch this hangnail hurts” isn’t such a big deal when you think “well yeah, you don’t get hang nails when you are dead”, and suddenly that hang nail isn’t such a big deal. I’m pretty sure this perspective is how one survives old age in general.

I’ve realized as I get closer to 40 that I stopped doing something I used to do a lot when I was younger, which was the ever popular “the grass is greener”. My “grass is greener” tendencies evolved through the years, at first they were very literal and very much in the 10 commandment breaking area of “coveting”, I really wanted what other people had, in fact sometimes I was pretty sure I was willing to trade them straight across, my life for their life. As I got older I realized that doesn’t work out so well, for a couple reasons. One, when you really get into the nitty gritty of “other” people’s lives they aren’t ever as cool as they look on the surface. Two, there are a lot of people that have things that look pretty nifty (and I don’t just mean material things) but in the end they are willing to sacrifice things I’m not so willing to sacrifice, to get those things. Things in life tend to come with price tags (literal and figurative) and some of those price tags are hefty.

So then my grass is greener evolved into the “why me’s” which is really just a variation of “the grass is greener”, it’s just much more narcissistic, assuming somehow that God, or the Universe (which ever you believe in, maybe both) somehow have a vested interest in making you miserable, and that somehow in the grand scheme of things you got handed an extra dosage of misery. I haven’t completely given up the “why me’s” in fact I can still work up a pretty convincing case of self pity, but for the most part I realize that while there is some real honest to goodness misery out there, my personal helping has been pretty limited, and let’s face it most things not a single person’s fault but my own,
I’m the one making the choices and living with the consequences.

What I’ve realized the last few weeks though is that I’ve settled a bit too comfortably into the opposite of the “grass is greener” syndrome, which I call “the grass is dying and probably full of weeds”. Instead of looking for all the things I can envy about other people, I’m seeking out all the ways their lives REALLY suck. I’m afraid that I may be entering 40 working at a blazing case of schadenfreude (well not pure shadenfreude, I don’t get joy in people’s misery, I just feel less alone and a bit better about my own life), and I’m realizing that maybe the best way to make it through the day is not to say to myself “well if I had THEIR life, I couldn’t even get out of bed in the morning, so how bad can my life be?”

So I’ve decided that as I round 40, my goal is going to be to concentrate on not measuring my life against any standards but the ones I’ve set with my Heavenly Father. I’m no more healthy not wanting what others have than I was when I was younger wishing I had what they had. I’m blessed, I’m hurt, I’m betrayed, I’m loved, I’m tired, I’m sick, I’m comforted, I’m lonely, I’m befriended, I’m thousands of things good and bad, every single day, that just “are”. They “are” because there is a plan, they are because of free agency, and they “are” sometimes because stuff just happens in life (good and bad) and I agreed to come down here and learn how to deal with that reality.

There is a line (I know it from a dorky song from Yentl) “the more I live the more I learn, the more I learn the less I know”, which I’m guessing is probably not just a song, but some sage advice that has come down from the ages. As I round 40 I realize much more than I did when I was younger how much I truly am just clueless about, how many things I don’t have answers for, and how many more I’m not even asking the right questions about. I’m becoming less and less judgmental because honestly I just have no idea what I would do in 90% of the situations other people deal, with, I’m barely figuring out my own life. I’m excited that I might be getting a handle on a few things, and even more excited to realize how far away I am from getting a handle on much in the big picture.

See the thing I’m most excited about as I get older, is that I’m finally starting to come to grips with the idea of eternity, it scared me when I was young, I just couldn’t even start to get a grip on it, and now I’m starting to see that even eternity may not be enough time to understand it all.