Holy Crap, I'm 45

Another trip around the sun.

Holy Crap, I’m 45. That’s a lot of years to be alive. I feel like I’m still at the beginning of my journey. So much to learn, accomplish, experience, and feel. Am I the only one who feels younger each year I get older?

I think of my almost five-year-old, who now tells everyone that he’s four and three-quarters. Every month is hard-earned for him. His deep quest to grow up as quickly as possible, while his mother tries to pull the emergency brake and stop time. We’re on opposite sides of the spectrum of time. I can feel the theory of relativity in my bones.

If I reflect on anything as I embark on this next season of life. I pray I’m only at my halfway mark. That I stay healthy, and I have another 45 years ahead of me. So many fears can pull me away from the time I so dearly want. The efforts to stay healthy and strong no longer feel at odds with my time. Exercising took time away from my son, my work, my sleep, and eating healthy felt like deprivation. Now, those actions feel like a desperate attempt to grasp more time with a healthy, functioning body and mind.

I don’t want to take a second for granted. I want to sit on a park bench and listen to the leaves in the wind. Feel the sun on my sunscreen-covered skin. To eat meals where each bite deserves to be savored. To play with my son as much as he asks, even if I’m tired or bored. Isn’t that the dream?

To be tired, bored, and watching this wonder of a boy discover the world around him. I want to read all the books he reads in his next 14 years of school, before he graduates and moves into his college dorm. The thought of him leaving my home already makes me weep. 14 years is a lifetime for him and a blink of an eye for me.

There are so many books I want to read. An endless amount, and I’ll never get to the bottom of the stacks. And there’s also all the books I want to write and publish, each for others to read. To leave my soul on the page, in a format that can provide comfort and doesn’t become obsolete as technology changes. There’s so much to explore in my writing life. There’s a pressure to succeed, to publish, to earn a living, that’s at odds with a quest to slow down and deepen my craft to find mastery of the word on the page. It’s a lifelong education that keeps me young, looking out at a vastness that can never fully be mastered. I can only keep learning.

When I look back, I can see the many lives I’ve lived as little movie clips. The richness of experience- all of it happened to me, shaped me, but only I get to decide what from the past defines me. I get to choose what to pull forward and what to release. Even if she no longer serves me, I still honor all of my past Jessicas, each beautiful in her own way.

The flashes of my life, from past to present. I’m a young Jewish girl in small-town Florida. I’m a teenager discovering Manhattan. I’m a NYU student finding her independence. I’m a young film and TV professional. I’m a marketing executive. I’m 30-something discovering Los Angeles. I’m a woman who has dated a thousand men and is still calling in my partner. I’m a woman having a child on my own. I’m a mom fleeing a fire and rebuilding with grace. I am a woman moving back to Brooklyn, feeling both at home and a stranger.

Feeling at home while still a stranger is a duality that brings me back to feeling younger as I grow older. It’s remarkable to open oneself up to learning and to come to terms with how much will be left unknown at the end of your life. It’s thrilling, scary, and a little sad to feel infinite knowledge, possibilities, and exploration ahead but also know I’ll never be able to see it all.

Last week at the one-year anniversary of the BK Walking Book Club, a small group of members, some regulars and some brand new, gathered to celebrate a year of reading, of walks, and of community. They surprised me with cards and gifts. It was a shower of appreciation for the space I’ve held, the organization, and their acknowledgment of that labor. The time I thought was invisible was not only seen but also felt by these individuals. I didn’t know one of them a year ago, and now they are all my friends.

It touched my heart so magnificently. It has me realizing that no matter where I am in the journey of life, I’m on the path, moving through it in a way I can be proud of. And perhaps the mark I so desperately want to leave on the world is already there in the hearts of others.