40 came today

40 came in a day.  

She crept into my world before I had danced with thirty.  She was here and it was time to let her in.

What did 40 look like, act like, feel like?  What the hell did she want from me?  Would I like her, want to grow old with her?  Before I could answer she flung the front door open and stared  directly at and through  me.

A tall, confident, self-assured vixen dressed in a two thousand dollar Armani suit said, “Hello.”  The splash of perfume combined artfully with translucent applications of make-up gave the distinct appearance of a woman who wears her age well.

With both feet firmly planted on my tattered old carpet, I knew she was a woman who had always known what she wanted, had a cleared the way, blazed her path and was damn proud of ever breath she had taken.  The type of specimen of a Lady that all the men secretly longed for  “Qualities of a Catch” list.

I took her coat and showed her to my living room.  She said, ” Nice home.”     I picked up the left over chips and stale beer from my coffee table.

“Thanks, I like it,” I replied.

40 looked familiar like a character from a movie or a model on those lame commercials on T.V.  The ones where the gal gets her face on in five, runs a marathon, closes a deal and gets to top it off dining with a hunky Brad Pitt look-alike.    She’s visited my nightmares too!

We sat for a few–what seemed like forever.

I invited 40 to have some tea.  She declined.  Why the hell was she staying here?  Did no one else want her or need her?

The bitch was using me.  She’d suck the life right out of me — if I let her.  Yet, I courteously showed her to her room and bid her a good might.  But still she haunted my mind.

As 40 undressed,  she revealed a tight-assed, soft bellied Diva.  Her skin was soft and her breasts firm.  She masterfully displayed the hard efforts of her dutiful exercise at the local gym.  40’s lips, her eyes. her smile, the contours of her cheeks collectively mirrored a youthful blended harmoniously with only the goodness, the wisdom that her age had offered.  The occasional facial lines served to imprint a moment of joy, of clarity of perfect.

40 looked in the mirror and it reflected a Rembrandt, a Degas and a Da Vinci.  She was a masterpiece of a reality molded by her mind and the mind’s of those she loved and hated too.

40 looked deeper for what seemed the first time.  She saw 40 at 20 at 10 at 5.  Putting her hands to her face, she cried out with fear.

She too was that innocent child who forgot to brush her teeth, comb her hair and forgot to say please or thank you.  The one who spent hours in the vegetable garden sculpting mud pies with her mother’s wooden spoon.  The memories flashed throwing her off course.  She felt the time she had a face full of zits and couldn’t bear to go to the school prom… Or more honestly — No one wanted to take her.  She remembered crying herself to sleep when she got an ‘F’ on her history paper.

40 let the shell break and something hauntingly familiar occurred  —

A warm tear trickled down her masked face.  She let the child dirty her clothes, let the youth dance and twirl in the hot sun.  40 smiled and for what seemed the first time felt alive!

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