A few weeks ago, I turned 40. Naturally, it’s got me thinking about the distance I’ve traveled since turning 30 and, especially, since turning 20. My brain runs these strange little “half-life” calculations on events in my life. Here are a few of them.
I’ve lived in Cincinnati 18 years and I’ve been married for almost 10 years. I’ve been Rebecca Bromels here longer than I have been Rebecca Bowman.
I’ve lived 9 years – half my time in Cincinnati – in this same house.
I spent 12 years at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, and I’ve been gone for 6 years. The radioactive isotopes should be halved by now, but the place still holds onto my heart.
My parents have been divorced for half my life.
At 40, I’ve been treating for depression and anxiety for half my life. I’ve been diabetic for a little more than half my life.
Other half-life milestones are on the horizon. In a few years, I’ll have lived half my life in Cincinnati, Ohio. My mother will have had a permanent brain injury for more than half my life. When my son turns 8 this year, he’ll have been a big brother for half of his young life.
I intend to live, God willing, many years into the future. From this year forward, the first 20 years of my life is going to be a smaller and smaller fraction of my time here. When people ask me how I’m feeling about turning 40, I don’t know how to answer them. But I think this is some of it: I am starting to feel the passage of time in decades and eras instead of seasons and years. And I am becoming more sensitive to fleeting moments of transition and marking them on my heart.
my extra hour 