40

"The only thing worse than being 40 is being 31 and married to a 40 year old." I said to my husband on the eve of his 40th birthday. I was trying to make him laugh but I think it just made him more depressed.

Norm was struggling with turning 40 and he wasn't sure why. He has everything he has ever truly wanted. But something about the number just bothered him. I told him that after today he would probably realize that 40 doesn't feel that different than 39.

When I first started dating Norm, our age difference was my second biggest concern. My first biggest concern was his name. I worried about how people would react when I said, "this is my boyfriend.....Norm." Then I started to worry if he was going to be the oldest father in our future children's kindergarten class. Now it all seems ridiculous but those are the things that crossed my mind in the first few months of dating Norm.

Fortunately, one of the things that also crossed my mind was how much I already loved him. And how easy it would be to love him for the rest my life. I had never met anyone like him. Anyone who possesses such an intense ability to love another person unconditionally. Anyone who is aware of the hardships that life can bring but confident that tomorrow is worth fighting for. Anyone who works as hard he does to become the best man he can possibly be. Those were the qualities I was looking for in a future husband. And, fortunately, I realized in time that those were the things that really mattered.

I am proud that my husband is 40. Proud for the man that he has become and how hard he has worked to achieve so much. How hard he continues to work for his family every hour of every day. If Norm wasn't turning 40 today then he wouldn't be the man that he is and he wouldn't be the man that I love more today than I did when he was 39.