On December 28, I turned 40. This came as no surprise, even to one as math-impaired as me.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s virtually impossible to throw a birthday party on my birthday, since everyone is exhausted from Christmas and saving up energy for a big New Year\u2019s Eve blowout (if they\u2019re even in town). There\u2019s even an Old English word for it: symbel-werig<\/i>. It means \u201cfeast-weary,\u201d and that\u2019s what everyone is on my birthday.<\/p>\n
The worst it ever got was my 18th birthday. My parents had dinner theater tickets, and my brother was at his friend\u2019s house (after his birthday, the day before mine. No, really.). My sister and I were home alone. She made a Pyrex bowl of raspberry Jell-O and stuck a taper candle in it. We watched Schindler\u2019s List<\/i>. Whoop-de-doo.<\/p>\n
For the big one this year, though, I decided that nothing said \u201cme at 40\u201d like riding rollercoasters. Thanks to Nickelodeon Universe, the indoor theme park in the middle of the Mall of America, it’s actually possible to do this in a Minnesota winter. Also, yay for half-price unlimited ride wristbands from 5-10pm. There was the entertaining possibility that I\u2019d get a mall security escort because I\u2019d been a marshal at the #BlackLivesMatterMOA protest<\/a> two weeks earlier. I planned to lure him onto rides, in case I felt like chanting anti-oppression slogans on the loop-de-loops. Alas, no joy.<\/p>\n Rolling over the odometer also made me think about what can happen in just one decade of living. I don\u2019t feel older, or even different, just more like the person 30-year-old me hoped to be eventually. Still, I learned a lot of lessons in the last 10 years, so here\u2019s the top 10 lessons I learned in my 30s.<\/p>\n 1) Having a second child is nothing like having the first.<\/b> I had my first son when I was 28, and my second one when I was 32. Instead of throwing up 20 hours a day for 5.5 months, I threw up 24 hours a day for 7.5 months in my second pregnancy. My labor couldn\u2019t have been more different, too. And you needn\u2019t look any further than this blog for how different the boys are from one another. Motherhood: what a weird, wonderful ride.<\/p>\n 2) The key to my kid is the key to myself.<\/b> When I was a kid, my parents and teachers told me I was \u201csocially backward\u201d because I was intellectually advanced. Slamming doors and balloons popping gave me migraines. I preferred the company of adults. And I recognized a lot of these traits in my older son; we joked that he inherited those traits. In fact, what we both were was autistic. Learning that unlocked memories and mysteries that plagued me my whole life, and understanding those helped me translate the world for my kid. We\u2019re all so much better for knowing ourselves.<\/p>\n 3) Intersectionality is everything.<\/b> I\u2019ve felt this way forever, but didn\u2019t know there was a word for it until I read a Flavia Dzodan blog post<\/a> that introduced me to the term, coined by UCLA prof Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw<\/a>. I also didn\u2019t realize it was such a controversial idea until I started advocating it. How is this difficult for people to understand? We are all so many different people, and all of our selves are bound together when it comes to liberation. How can you be a feminist who excludes trans women? How can you be anti-racism and simultaneously suppress the contributions of women? How can you demand an end to oppression but hold planning meetings that are inaccessible to disabled people? In Flavia\u2019s words, \u201cMy activism will be intersectional or it will be shit.\u201d<\/p>\n 4) Don\u2019t move without a safety net.<\/b> I learned this one the hard way. In Minnesota, you have to be a resident before you can apply for state health insurance. We had paperwork ready to go the day we moved, but we encountered a four-month wait. We\u2019d saved money for an appointment to get me set up with bridge coverage for my fibro and depression. What I didn\u2019t do was research doctors\u2014the one I went to refused to continue the treatment plan I\u2019d had for over a decade. The decompensation that happened without my prescriptions resulted in a summer lost to pain and despair, ultimately landing me in the hospital. Lesson learned? You cannot overplan for your medical care when moving–your life literally depends on it.<\/p>\n 5) Family is what you make it.<\/b> I grew up so close to my family that I refused to even consider moving to New Zealand to be with my Darling Husband, because I couldn\u2019t imagine going so long between visits with my parents and siblings. But after I called out my family about 4 years ago for treating my autistic son like crap and undermining our parenting, everything changed. My brother and sister still won\u2019t talk to me for hurting my mom, even though she and I are fine now. Thankfully,\u00a0we\u2019ve built a family of friends, old and young, near and far, who more than make up for the love lost. All that\u2019s left to mourn is the continuity.<\/p>\n 6) Sharing knowledge is more than the letters after your name.<\/b> My grad school department kicked me out in 2005 because my area of study didn\u2019t match their idea of subjects that build a \u201cworld-class history program.\u201d Despite that, I have 15 years of teaching experience, and knowledge that I use everyday\u2014with my kids, with other kids, with other adults, and in my organizing. Teaching is my vocation, plainly put. Even if the flood of post-recession Ph.D.s makes it unlikely I\u2019ll get a college job again, I\u2019m always looking for ways to share what I know in engaging ways.<\/p>\n 7) Caucusing is hazardous to your health.<\/b> Until we moved to Minnesota, I\u2019d always lived in states with primary elections, so I was extremely excited to attend my first caucus on February 2, 2012. It was weird and idiosyncratic and strangely wonderful; I was too hyped about democracy to sleep until midnight. At about 1:00 AM, I woke with abdominal pain. By 5:00 AM, it was worse than labor, and Darling Husband took me to the ER. I had acute pancreatitis, caused by a gallstone. I spent a week in the hospital, and they surgically removed a bag of rocks from my gut. I now view caucuses as highly suspicious and potentially life-threatening.<\/p>\n 8) I am committed with my whole heart and soul to equity.<\/b> This isn\u2019t about rights, or even history. It\u2019s about empathy. If anyone\u2019s potential is oppressed for who they are, then my potential is also less. I see the beautiful humanity in everyone, and want for them the joys I\u2019ve found and the opportunity to be all of themselves. And yes, I\u2019m willing to block traffic, invade public spaces, and commit civil disobedience to make this happen. I consider it a sacred duty.<\/p>\n 9) Together, we win.<\/b> I\u2019ve never been very competitive, and I always plan for failure so that, as Lloyd Dobbler wisely advised, \u201c\u2026everything\u2019s kind of a pleasant surprise.\u201d But with the campaign for marriage equality, and against Voter ID, and for a new anti-bullying bill and a higher minimum wage, guess what I discovered? I like to win<\/em>. I like it almost as much as the conversations and organizing it takes to come out victorious. These efforts and the folks I\u2019ve met in them evaporated any cynicism I had about the potential of people power. I highly recommend it to everyone.<\/p>\n 10) It\u2019s never too late.<\/b> I didn\u2019t intend to really go balls-out for the last year of my 30s, but I accidentally did. I learned and performed burlesque dance, even in this imperfect body. I got two big tattoos, the first I\u2019ve ever had. I went to a national convention for community organizers. I shut down highways, corporate offices, and the largest mall in America. I made my kid\u2019s middle school change their negative, reactive response to common autistic behaviors, and re-centered them on positive reinforcement that nourishes all<\/i> children\u2019s education. All this with my physical and mental limitations. It\u2019s never too late to do important things, and if you forget that, just ask me for a reminder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On December 28, I turned 40. This came as no surprise, even to one as math-impaired as me. It\u2019s virtually impossible to throw a birthday party on my birthday, since everyone is exhausted from Christmas and saving up energy for a big New Year\u2019s Eve blowout (if they\u2019re even in town). There\u2019s even an Old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[535,537,538,130,161,518,4,193,235,227,84,530,100,541,301,35,372,539,123,540,3,536,18],"class_list":["post-987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curriculum-instruction","tag-535","tag-40-years-old","tag-40s","tag-activism","tag-adventure","tag-aging","tag-aspergers","tag-autism","tag-birthday","tag-democracy","tag-education","tag-equity","tag-family","tag-friends","tag-health","tag-human-rights","tag-intersectionalism","tag-learning","tag-motherhood","tag-organizing","tag-parenting","tag-turning-40","tag-values"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions\/988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}