In seven short weeks I will be 40. Sigh. I'm not ready to be 40.

1. I'm still struggling with the baby weight. Should it bother me? In an ideal world, no. Does it bother me? Yes. Intellectually do I understand that it is proof that I've done this amazing thing and used my strong body to create another human? Yes. Does that mean that I'm superhuman and can dissociate what my mind knows from what my eyes see and how it makes me feel? No. The toughest part is breaking the cycle of fatigue and depression. I know what I need to do. I know how to do it. Getting there is what is proving to be the toughest part. But, seven weeks from now I don't want to be bemoaning the fact that I'm 40 and still feeling this way.*

First things first: I took care of my hair. For the last six weeks I've felt horribly bad about myself, and it was a result of my hair. I knew that. But I was trying to deal with it. I got that fixed on Friday. All is well with the world now. I have one less thing about which to worry.

Thursday begins (I hope), the fixing of my face. I have horrible melasma. It's one of the most damaging things to my self-esteem and one of the biggest reasons why I am dreading 40. I think once my face is clear, I will feel better about myself and my age.

Also, after a decade, I have finally made a dentist appointment. Now if I could just get my sleep, eating, and working out under control, then we'd be making more progress.

2. The scholarly stuff: The article I've been working on will go out to the reader by next Wednesday at the latest. The other article and the book proposal will be done by my birthday. Those are my goals for 40--to have that done by my 40th birthday so that I feel like I have accomplished something.

3. The house: I have found the house of KonMari and I worship at the alter of it. It is an exhausting ordeal though, but I can't stop. Seriously. Everything looks so good and it's so easy to maintain that I just can't not finish what I've started here. The best part is that it's creating so much space, space that's been there but that I haven't had access to. But the balance between working on that and other stuff is hard. I so wish I had found this over the summer because I'd be done by now. What is stressful though is that I think about how much time I've put into this that if I'd put that same amount of time into my work, I'd have two article written by now. Seriously. But this is tangible, immediate, orderly. It gives me control that I need right now as I feel all other areas of my life are a mess.  But there must be balance. It won't do me any good to have a tidy house and no job.

4. In seven weeks I intend to have our finances under control so that I can be 40 and feel responsible and solvent and not like a clueless 20 year old.

That's where I'm at. If I can turn the tv off long enough and do what I need to do, I can get this stuff done. First though is breaking that cycle of fatigue and depression (that is fueled a lot by my diet right now). When that is clean, every thing else just seems to fall into place.

But now since my office hours are over, I'm going to go to the store, take care of a few things at home, have a good workout and then work.

The end.



*Yes, I know 40 isn't a death sentence and lots of you are loving being 40 or loving being in your 40s. And I have often thought that life truly starts at 40. My other issue is that 40 is bothering me so much. I know I should embrace it and love it. And in seven weeks I will.