Forty: I Love You.

These forty days of celebrating forty have changed my life.

Are changing my life.

FORTY days.

Forty days of good things.

Forty days of waking up with a light heart (even on heavy days) and wondering what good was coming my way.

And knowing, knowing, that some good was coming my way.

Despite whatever the day might hold – urine on the floor, bad news at work, delays at home, bills to pay – at least at one point during my twenty-four hours on that very day, something good was going to happen.

To me.

For me.

It’s been unbelievable.

At once humbling and celebratory and exciting and hopeful and just plain fun.

I love it.

The texts.  The words.  The cookies.  The cupcakes.  The breakfasts.  The childcare.  The shopping.  The videos.  The plans.

The everything.

Each gift – of words or food or time – was really a message of so much more to me.

A message I did not miss.

A message loud and clear.

I am loved.

I am blessed.

I am floating in an ocean of knowing that I have friends.

Such good and sweet and generous and thoughtful friends.

Friends far and near.

Friends from Virginia to North Carolina to Florida to Kentucky to Georgia to some tent in the woods of Minnesota.

Friends from my days of being single and wearing flannel shirts with cut off jean shorts and construction boots.  (Oh, yes – I did.)

Friends from my first teaching job when I struggled to find the balance of looking like a student but being the authority.

Friends that I met when I was fifteen and their family became my family in a tangly lovely sort of fashion.

I do not deserve this kind of outpouring.

But my hands have been open wide and my heart has swelled with each card and kindness and compliment and I can tell you that I am soaking these forty days in.

I am holding them up and treasuring them and collecting them in my heart.

These days – days of watching people be kind to me and mine – has made me want to be kinder, to be more thoughtful.  To be light more than dark.  To look for chaos and bring peace to it.

I’ve been reminded just how much little things matter.

How kindness doesn’t have to cost anything.

How a word and a comment can shape an entire day.

How no good gift is wasted or lost or unappreciated.

How acting kind makes you feel kind.

How being loved makes you want to love.

How good inspires good.

That’s knowledge that can change your days.

Your parenting.

Your marriage.

Your life.