2014 and transformation

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I'll be honest, 2014 and I are off to a rough start. Before it even arrived, I knew this year would be difficult for me. I'm turning 40. That's right, the big 4-0. And I'm not taking it very well. I am not, as my grandma used to say, aging gracefully. I don't want to age gracefully. What does that even mean? Does aging with grace mean that you calmly accept those things you cannot change? If so, it sounds more like a mantra used in Alcoholics Anonymous. Should I wear turtlenecks? Put my hair up in chignon? Start referring to everyone as dear in conversation? Is this the part where I'm supposed to embrace my inner crone?

Statistically speaking, half my life is probably over. I'll admit the the first half has been great. I've done things I never dreamed possible when I was coming of age in that tiny town in Illinois. I'm married to a handsome and generous man. I have two beautiful children who are turning into sensitive and thoughtful human beings. I've seen my fair share of the world. I've experienced both heart-bursting joy and losses that crushed pieces of my soul. In short, I have lived and loved beyond my wildest expectations. I'm blessed and I know it.

But now I'm turning 40, and I've decided I need to shake things up a bit. I've decided that if I can't age gracefully then I can at least do something that propels me forward.That's why I've decided that 2014 will be a year of transformation. 2014 will be the year of Scheffie. I don't want to be the same person stepping into 2015 as I am now. By this time next year I want to have a wagon load of new experiences and discuss them right here. I've got some ideas about what types of things I'd like to do. I won't share them with you now. It would spoil the surprise. I'll let my mid-life crisis unfold as it will, here on these pages.It's an ever-evolving list  of new experiences anyway.

Suffice to say, I plan to kick 2014's ass.

So let the transformation begin. If I have to turn 40, I'm going to do it my way.

The difficulties of being an aging night owl

I have always been a person who functioned better in the evening than during the day. That first, beautiful ray of sunlight that peeks over the horizon at dawn? Never see it, unless in my youth, when I had been out all night. Then I saw it through bleary eyes as I was falling face down onto my bed. I love the quiet and stillness that the nighttime brings. The children are asleep, as are most of my elderly neighbors and I'm left in glorious solitude.
It's possible for me to function on five or six hours of sleep. My dear husband requires at least 8 hours. My children need 12. Left to my own devices, I will stay up until 2 a.m. and sleep in 'til 11. But we're never left to our own devices are we?
Most of the world insists on keeping to a day timers schedule. Schools. Doctor's offices. The people who come to work at your house. Everyone assumes that you're a morning person. Except that when everyone else is winding down, I'm starting to wind up. According to the schemes of the world, I'm supposed to be bright eyed and bushy tailed after having eaten a healthy breakfast and exercised at the gym and showered. And I'm supposed to have done all this by 7 a.m.
And then there's the children. Those tiny human beings who spring from their beds and are ready to face the day. They decide that you should face the day at the exact same time, no matter that your aging body, dehydrated from the amount of Diet Mountain Dew you guzzled the night before, is screaming at you to stay in bed.
Therein lies the real issue: being an aging night owl.
I can honestly say that I crave the energy I had in my 20s to be melded with the wisdom and life I've gained in my 30s. Because in order to keep up with the daily demands of the day timers and get any of my precious nighttime solitude, I must consume large quantities of caffeine. Like some heroin addict, I need more and more of the stuff to keep going and reach the wakefulness that one can used to bring me. Twelve ounces of Diet Mountain Dew simply doesn't do it for me anymore. Now it takes two or three cans or perhaps a pot of coffee, a fact I keep from my urologist so as not to alarm him.
Where will it end? By my 40s, I very well could be hitting up convenience stores and stockpiling energy drinks. Although my older girlfriends tell me to enjoy the sleep that I do get, because someday hormonal changes will bewitch my body and sleep will come not at all. Perhaps then I'll replace my Diet Mountain Dew with a few cups of chamomile tea.