Finding Forty

By Jane Elliott

“What do you want for your birthday?”

It’s such a simple question, really.

But for me, it lands like a stone in water—heavy, unsettling, rippling through layers of memory I’d rather not touch.

This year, like so many others, I find myself struggling to answer. Not because I’m shy or selfless, but because I honestly don’t know. I don’t know how to want anything right now.

Gestational diabetes has stripped even food of its comfort. The idea of a slice of cake or a celebratory lunch doesn’t feel joyful—it feels dangerous. What used to be simple—blowing out candles, indulging in a favorite meal—now comes with calculations, caution, and consequences.

It’s a strange thing, grieving food. Grieving comfort. Grieving simplicity.

And beyond the physical, there’s the emotional weight of this day.

My birthday holds a history—some years marred by arguments between parents who didn’t know how to be kind to each other. Some years were marked by chaos: a cake thrown on the ground, blue icing melting into dirt. I remember being small, unnoticed, wondering if I was allowed to eat the pieces the ants hadn’t found yet.

Other years? Just silence. Forgotten. Overlooked.

Honestly, I preferred the forgetting. It hurt less than the chaos.

Now, as an adult, I usually retreat. I recluse. I try to make peace with where I am in life and where I hope to be. I ask myself the kinds of questions a child shouldn’t have had to ask—but did.

Because at 11 years old, with a fractured childhood and an absent mother, I began wondering, “What would my 40-year-old self say to me?” That imagined voice became a kind of lifeline—my compass when I didn’t have one. I clung to the wisdom of women older than me, hoping their lived truths would fill in the gaps left by those who couldn’t show up.

Each year since has felt like a step toward that 40-year-old self.

Now, I’m 39. Knocking on 40’s door.

And I still find myself asking: Am I becoming the woman I needed back then?

Birthdays make space for that kind of reflection. Sometimes unwillingly.

They stir up guilt, too. Because it’s not just my day. Before it’s mine, it’s Linda’s. Just saying her name is enough for those who know. The emotional charge around that relationship still pulses beneath the surface. It makes celebration feel awkward, unsettled—like trying to dance while holding your breath.

So when someone asks, “What do you want for your birthday?”—the most honest answer is:

I want to get through it.

I want gentleness.

I want low expectations.

I want not to feel broken for needing all of that.

But even beneath the grief and the grit, there is something else—a quiet ember of hope.

Because I am still here. I’m still showing up. Still growing. Still asking hard questions, which means I haven’t given up on living into the answers.

There’s hope in the way I parent—imperfectly, but with intention.

There’s hope in choosing gentleness over guilt, honesty over performance.

There’s hope in becoming.

So no, I may not know what I want for my birthday.

But I know what I’m becoming.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s enough of a gift for now.