The great unraveling

Turning 40, and a birthday list.

Hi. I’m still here! Lately I need to remind myself of this pretty frequently. But yeah, I’m still here, and as of this past week, I’m 40.

We celebrated well. We went beach camping in Montauk, we hosted a surprisingly competitive meatball cook-off, and to cap festivities, we roasted s’mores under a tent of stars and trees. In some ways, it felt like the whole ordeal rushed by like it was happening with or without me. I watched from the outside, collecting so many sweet moments I wanted to keep. 

But somewhere amid a haze of crackling campfire embers, between dribbly bites of summer’s last tomatoes on toast, during slow, aching conversations sitting with my best friend in the sand and in wine-soaked whispers to Gregg after our last guests had left, I had to admit: this one had gotten to me. 

It wasn’t the number, per se, that made me wobble. It’s this new era I’ve stumbled into. For years I’ve been steadily shaped by my love and joy and pain. But for some reason my personhood has never felt more amorphous than it does today. 

The question that’s been bubbling up is not exactly “who am I?” That feels way too open ended. Instead, it’s more like … what is me and what isn’t? Where does everything else end, and where do I begin? 

I guess it really hit me when I had Joel. I started to wonder about all these shifts in my identity. Did adding “mom” to the list mean something else got edged off of it? Does the me of 5 years old and 16 and 33 still exist? Do we lose the bits of ourselves that go untended, or do they simply lie dormant? 

To add to that confusion, toss in an unexpected career hiatus and the general malaise that comes along with aging into a new decade. Suddenly I’ve dissociated. What am I even doing, and why am I doing any of it? 

It’s that second part that really gets me. I can’t look back at any one point in my life and say I felt the most “me”—like my decisions were grounded in Who I Am. Instead, I’ve always been a person who wants to please others, be liked, fit in. And so here I am at 40 wondering—what do I actually care about? What do I really like? Are any of the layers of self I’ve accumulated my own, or have they always been personas I’ve been trying on?

During a recent stint of middle-of-the-night scrolling, I stopped to read an Instagram post from The Holistic Psychologist. The premise was pretty basic, but it spoke to me during this particular season of self-analysis. In part, the text read that we need to normalize starting over at 40. The author wasn’t necessarily pinpointing my particular age—just acknowledging that everyone’s timeline looks different, and they’re all equally valid.

So maybe this is my beginning? I’ve told many of you these past few months that I feel like I’ve been pulling at a lot of threads. Writing words without any clear sense of purpose. But maybe if I keep tugging I’ll eventually reveal something underneath—someone raw and tender and familiar. I’d like to get to know her. 

For today, as a little beginner’s exercise in taking an honest look at myself, I decided to ask 40-year-old Jackie: what would you really want for your birthday? Like, say if no one would ever see your list, and there weren’t any limits? In no particular order, here’s what I came up with. 

1. To complete a piece worthy of publishing—specifically a short story or personal essay that pulls at peoples’ heartstrings because it rings so achingly true, and encourages us to consider something new.

2. A weekend away from everything to just sleep, eat cheese, swim, write, repeat.

3. Socks.

4. Flowers. Always.

   

   A Slow Roads pitcher from my mama, and a spectacular Shepherd’s Meadow Flowers bouquet from me.

5. My resume to update itself. Can AI do this yet?

6. An efficient and effective way to dismantle our two party democracy and build something better and stronger in its place.

7. An end to genocide. (Yeah, bump this.)

8. A long, luxurious cuddle sesh with my 1-year-old where he doesn’t also try to smack my face. 

9. The time, bandwidth, money, and talent to DIY a growing pile of home renovations.

10. Raised beds. 

11. A Spotify playlist full of new-to-me tunes that, once played, feels like I’ve already been singing along for ages.

12. Dinner with Gregg at Cafe Mutsi, a local restaurant we haven’t tried yet. 

13. To have all my friends come over and stay up late and dance with me.

14. Skincare that will actually treat my keratosis pilaris. (So far, no success.)

Soooo … what about you? Are you falling apart too? What’s on your list? Tell me in the comments?