This is the sentiment I usually think about every birthday, but it feels especially true this time. For some reason, 45 feels like an important number for me. It feels like a pivotal time in my story, even though I’m not sure what it will bring. Which is odd, because 20-year-old me thought I’d be done by this age.

When I was younger, I had a clear idea of what 45 would be like. People that age looked and acted different. They always seemed to have their shit together and had already answered all the big life questions. I remember being a young barista, serving coffee to CEOs and corporate bosses during their lunch breaks, then helping them pick out new jeans at the Gap that same evening, because yes, I needed two jobs just to afford rent and food. I was always mesmerized by how they could drop 200 dollars on clothes without even checking their bank account first.

Or maybe 45 was also my boss at any of these retail establishments. Someone who had lived a hard life, been through the things. Maybe life hadn’t handed them the same things as the 45-year-old corporate mogul, but they still had the presence of someone calcified in who they were and what they believed in.

But here, now, as I write this the night before turning 45, I’m not either of these effigies of adulthood that I thought I would end up being. In some ways I am, but in many ways I still feel like I’m growing in every direction, and none of it feels calcified or like I’m reaching the end of anything. It feels more like coming into my prime while also having enormous amounts left to learn, which I never expected to happen at once.

And I’m sure those of you who’ve passed this moment are like, “Welcome to the club.” While those of you who aren’t yet close to this moment are like… “Gotta live my life while I’m still young!” But this isn’t about you, because it’s my birthday, so I’ll take my time as I process the beauty of feeling at home in myself and get excited about the many new things I still get to learn as I become more present and grounded.

This afternoon, the moon reaches its First Quarter. In the book The Lunation Cycle, Dane Ruhyar describes the First Quarter as a key moment of change: it’s when whatever was released at the new moon needs to be shaped into something real, and there’s still some uncertainty about whether it will succeed.

He describes it as “a moment of basic dissatisfaction with self, yet also a time of challenge to the self,” and talks about breaking through “the shells of past structures,” which feels like the same concept of calcification. For me, there was a part of me leading up to this age that felt a sense of failure for being ‘unfinished,’ but reading that just reinforces that being unfinished is the specific work required during this phase of life.

And the First Quarter moon is a full week away from the full moon on the 26th. When I think about how I celebrate moon cycles, this is the time I’m weaving the vessel that will hold the later illumination. In this moment of the lunar cycle, we’re not at the peak yet, which is how I feel right now. I’m at the stage where I’m still making the thing that will hold all the wonderful things to come.

And that’s the new vision for 45 I have now that I’m sitting squarely in it.

And as positive as this feeling of wonderful possibility is, there’s always a shadow, and I would be doing it a disservice not to explore it.

Thorn Mooney writes about tools going dull: "When we use them for years, over and over, they sometimes lose the power to trigger the mental shift that working magic requires." She’s referencing athames and altar cloths, but I think the same thing happens to people. Some of what I wrap up in the pretty hopeful outfit of “still growing” might just be me avoiding commitment to a thing.

She also has this line I wrote on a Post-it: "I had spent so much time turning my spirituality into my job that I'd lost the magic of it all."

As someone who writes about their practice every week, on a schedule, for people to consume and read, I feel this so much. It’s a reminder to get out of my head, out of the books, and sit with the spirits, plants, land, magic, ancestors, and familiars that make my practice the thing I keep wanting to write about.

I keep saying 45, but this honestly isn’t about the number. I probably would’ve had the same thought at 35 if I’d actually looked.

Somewhere, you’ve got a picture tucked away of what you think you’re supposed to be by [insert age here]. You probably started painting it when you were young, sitting outside of it all, unaware that the adults were just improvising and doing the best they could. If you look at that picture now and see a gap or feel guilt that your actual life isn’t what you thought it would be, that isn’t evidence that something’s gone wrong. It might just be evidence that a twenty-year-old with limited information painted the picture.

So the question both of us should sit with this weekend is whether the thing you’re calling “behind” might just be “still building.” Those two phrases, as different as they are, can feel almost identical from the inside, which can lead to a lot of confusion as we get older.

As always, thanks for being here and thanks for sitting with my words for a bit. I hope they’ve found you well.

xo,
Chad

Below are the books I’ve referenced in this Newsletter.

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