Turning heads

Could I possibly love being forty more than I do? I don't really think so. And I'll tell you, I think half the reason it has been so spectacularly great is because I absolutely expected it to be spectacularly great.

Let me start this little story with this: When I go out with my gorgeous friends (and trust me, I have gorgeous friends) I tend to kind of fade into the background. I'm not the girl that gets the attention, and I never have been. I don't particularly mind this, which is a good thing because it has always been this way.

Okay, with that said, off with the story of my second birthday party in Vegas.

We arrive relatively early on a Wednesday morning. We take a limo to the Venetian where we spend the entire day at the spa. We drank mimosas, we laughed, we talked, there are things I can't tell you about the spa time or the girls would kill me...it was awesome. There were six of us girls. Some of us did hair and makeup at the end of the day, including me. It was definitely Vegas hair and makeup. I didn't really recognize myself when that was all done.

Then we got dressed and headed out. AND HOLY CRAP INTERNET, I HAVE NEVER GOTTEN MORE MALE ATTENTION IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.

Now listen, I am not exaggerating. At all. There were strangers taking pictures of us, and of me alone. Heads were whipping around everywhere we went. And here is the crazy part: I was getting the most attention. Me, the one that is usually just part of the group. At freaking forty! This has never been the case before, and it happens to me at forty. I can't even capture how very cool that was. I appreciate the shit out of that at forty. At twenty? It just sort of seems normal to get looked at like that. You take it for granted. At forty, having birthed a baby, and spent four decades living with gravitational pull? You don't take that attention for granted.

I swear it was like the universe decided to give me that as a birthday present. For forty, this girl is gonna turn heads.

Want to know what else I appreciate the shit out of? My girlfriends. They wanted that night for me. They loved it. It's like I had this fabulous group of wing men. They all had my back. They wanted me to have a great night, so they all stepped back and made it about me. No one was competing with me or with anyone else. We just laughed and danced and sang and had fun. I can't put into words how much I love and appreciate my girlfriends, or how utterly fabulous they were that night. There was zero ego, zero competition, zero anything negative.

These girls even rounded up a super nice dude for me Wednesday night, not that I was really looking for that. But when the group says - that one - well, you have to give the guy a chance. We're going to call him New York, or NY for short, since that is where he lives. NY was kind of the icing on the cake that night. Very sweet, very respectful of the situation (I was there to be with my girlfriends), very attentive. Told me later (I'm still talking to that one) that part of what attracted him to me was the fact that it was obvious my friends love me a lot. Nice.

I think the word fabulous is rather overused (thanks in no small part to Sex and the City) and a bit annoying. But when it comes to forty, forty and fabulous just works. I wanted to turn forty in a fabulous way. It was important to me. And I have. I've never felt better.