multi-hyphenated-me

One of my favorite football players is Chad Johnson, formerly known as Chad Ochocinco.  I guess he got into some trouble with the law and was released from his contract with the Miami Dolphins in 2012, I don’t support whatever mess he’s gotten himself into.  What I think is great about him is his love for his jersey number, #85, so much that he changed his last name to Ochocinco.

Ever since I’ve learned of Ochocinco, I refer to my age the same way.  Tonight I end my quatro quatro year.  Just as I’m sure the Spanish language has a word for eighty-five, I love the play on forty-four. I’m supposed to be learning Spanish, so I looked it up, eighty-five is ochenta y cinco in Spanish and forty-four is cuarenta y quatro.  Complicated!  Ochocinco and quatro quatro is much easier for this gringa.

My Spanish lessons are not going so well.  I’m should be spending time with Rosetta Stone every day but find listening to Pit Bull, Shakira, Enrique Iglasias and Ibrahim Ferrer while on my morning walks is a good daily dose of the Spanish language.  I sing along (or at least make up the words as I go), that should count for something.  Music is universal, right? when I travel to our Latin America offices and local universities, I’ll just break into song and everyone will love me.  Ok, probably not, but this is the excuse I’m going with today.

Back to today.

This post really isn’t about Chad Ochocinco Johnson or the lack of my discipline for Spanish lessons.  This post is about the end of my cuarenta y quatro, quatro quatro, forty-fourth year.

Forty four was good to me. A healthy year with more personal growth than decline. A year spent surrounded by friends and family and involved in all the activities that come with both groups. Of course it is the year we moved and have experienced so many new adventures and have so many more ahead.  Overall, it was a very good year.

And now moving forward to the big 4-5.  Five away from fifty.  Almost halfway to one hundred.  There’s perspective for you.  I really don’t have much to say about it.  Aging up doesn’t bother me.  I embrace my age, gray hair, crinkles, wrinkles and dents as they come.  All of it comprises where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I’m doing and who I am.  Aging up is a fun ride, a long slow ride.

This is me at 40.  I look the same.  Trust me.  Just take a sharpie and add some extra “laugh lines” and sprinkle some flour on my head for the gray hair and the photo is current.

A toast to the old and cheers to anew (I’m raising my cup of chamomile tea – I’m getting old, do you think I’m out drinking and blogging? We learned a while ago that’s a bad combination).

Thank you for being part of my forty-fourth year. Whether I know you or not, connected to me personally or through social media or through this blog, thank you for being connected to me, part of my life.