This week I turned 40. Naturally, I was anticipating walking into my office at work and seeing black balloons and streamers everywhere, maybe a cane and some bottles of prune juice sitting on my desk, you know, the typical "You're so old, you're over the hill" 40th birthday paraphernalia one might expect. But that's not what I saw. Instead, when I walked into my office, I saw the most amazing thing...pictures of myself hanging from the ceiling draped in beautiful, curled, shiny blue ribbon, pictures of me at age 10, 20 and 30, all the decades of my life with little captions at the bottom of each one. My sneaky and creative boss had gotten these pictures from my father. These were pictures I had all but forgotten, so when I saw them, I was so emotionally touched and immediately taken down a type of "this is your life" memory lane.

It was a beautiful and surreal experience to see myself in these decade increments, and to realize in such a visual way how my life had so profoundly progressed over the years. There I was at age 10, just a little girl with gangly teeth, a big smile, and absolutely no idea how life would unfold over the next 30 years. At age 20, the pictures revealed what seemed like an adult ready to conquer the world, but the baby fat in my face proved that I was still just a kid trying to figure out her way, who I was, and that my little life boat really didn't have any distinct direction.

At age thirty, the pictures revealed a completely different story. These pictures of me also included my first child, who was just one at the time. I was a new mother at age 30, and so this was the decade of coming into the role of wife and motherhood, a decade of great joy, discovery and clarity. But this would also be the decade of great change and struggle...even sorrow, for this was the decade where I really and truly had to grow up, become an adult and learn what it meant to put someone else's needs before my own. I learned in these 10 years that my life's goals would have to be put "on hold" for a while in order to be the best mother I could be. I'd like to say that the love for my children and husband made this an easy task for me to accept, but that would not be telling you the truth. It was painfully difficult to put my oil paints away, put my writing away, to feel like I was essentially putting myself in a brown moving box, taking it down to the basement storage closet and having to say "Bye-bye, Dianne." In many ways, I felt like I had to die in order to let others live, and that I would never see the contents of the "Dianne box" again. I always kept this sadness to myself out of guilt and shame, but it wasn't long before I realized how common this feeling was among new moms. I remember at one point realizing how fast my babies were growing up and that I absolutely did not want to wish away one more moment and certainly wanted to be in every one. This was the turning point for me in my 30s, the point at which I realized to my core that I would see that Dianne box again, probably quicker than I would realize, so I had better embrace every single moment, even the sad and difficult ones with my children and family.

Well, guess what? In just a flash, another decade has passed. My precious babies are now in school full-time, and as I write these words now, there is an opened, ten-year-old, brown box on the floor next to me marked "Dianne" that I've just begun to open and rediscover all its wonderful contents. The decade of my 40s has nothing to do with death, or black balloons or anything over the hill, but rather, vibrant colors, life and rebirth. I wonder what the pictures of my 40s will look like when I hit the big 5-0!? Only the universe knows this answer. My job now is to simply be in every moment as fully as I can and make sure I take time to smell the roses along this new road of my great life adventure...and oh, what an adventure it's already starting out to be!