A prayer at 40.

It’s a big one coming up this week.
Somewhat terrifying.
I am turning 40.

Forty feels like a moment when life quietly asks you to take stock of what has been, and what has not yet arrived.

It’s a big number. Bigger because I am still single. Bigger because I’ve just moved to a new state and am still finding myself and my people. Bigger because I can’t pretend not to dye my hair anymore, and the lines on my face are starting to appear. Bigger because the kids I went to school with are about to have grandchildren, and I feel so disconnected from the reality that once was.

There are many feelings arising, and I’m sure they will continue to arise.

On the one hand, I am so grateful for what I have accomplished. But there is also a wistful feeling that rises again and again: What am I doing wrong? Why does the thing I long for most still feel just out of reach?

And yet, life is good. In fact, it is better than it has ever been.

I am enjoying my work.
I love where I live.
I like who I am becoming.

It has been a long forty-year journey to arrive here, and in many ways, I have arrived.

But somehow, I am still missing the thing I have been yearning for.

I hope that G-d will answer my prayers this year. I feel more open than I have before, and yet I am still hesitant. What makes this year different?

I have seen how the world turns for people. Sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worst, and sometimes simply in ways that no one could have predicted. In some ways, part of me hopes things will just stay the same. Even though this is not the life I once imagined or hoped for, at least it is not worse.

Still, I wish I could welcome forty with open arms, with complete belief that what I hope for will come.

Sometimes I wonder if my time simply passed, and if what was meant to come in my twenties somehow didn’t, and now G-d has more urgent matters to attend to.

After all, there are bigger problems now: pandemics, wars, the fragile state of the world.

As a child, I believed my dreams and wishes were so important. Now I see how small I am in the vastness of everything. That realization is both humbling and scary.

Perhaps this age comes with something else: wisdom. The understanding that acceptance is often the only way to live peacefully in this world.

Of course, I could try harder. Believe harder. Push harder. But the truth is, I have already done that for most of my life.

So perhaps my calling now is something different: to work more wisely, and to trust that the efforts I have already made will eventually bear fruit.

I don’t know if I really have another choice.

So my prayer for this year is simple:

May Hashem grant me a partner.

May He help me continue to support and influence others in ways that feel real, authentic, and true.
May He grant me children.
And May He grant me serenity and wisdom come what may.

I pray that these things come in the most beautiful way, and in a way that does not require such relentless striving.

I pray most of all, that the next decade will reveal that nothing was late at all, only quiet preparation for all to arrive at the right time.

Amen.