This is 40.

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Veggies: In between eating large handfuls of Cadbury mini-eggs, I'm promise that I'm eating lots and lots of salads.
Wine: Still mostly drinking Bota Box ... recently bought the Shiraz box. Not bad. But still a little embarrassing.

True story: In my early twenties, I met my future husband, DP, who is six years older. The circumstances surrounding the beginning of our relationship were a little complicated, and one night I found myself looking for reasons why we wouldn't work as a couple. Out loud, and in total 23-year-old seriousness, I said that I couldn't possibly date someone who was going to be 40 in 11 years. Really? Yes, really. I was forgiven, and, 17 years later, we are together celebrating my own foray into being 40.

Here's what I didn't know when I was 23 ... that getting older is actually quite amazing. I had no clue that the best years of my life were ahead of me, and my future would be far more interesting than my past. Yeah, so I had no wrinkles ... whatever. In the past 17 years, I've traveled and explored and adventured around the world. I've become more comfortable with who I am, what I believe, and how I live my life. I've learned how to surf, teach and practice yoga, cook, live in the moment, and be a (mostly good) spouse. I've experienced love, patience, fierceness, courage, despair, fear, doubt, and bliss. And I can still turn a cartwheel on the beach like I'm 10. So here's what I hope for my future: that when I'm 80, I'm able to say ... What did I know at 40? I had no clue that the best years of my life were ahead of me, and my future would be far more interesting than my past.

And, yes, I'm definitely planning to get a picture of me, at 80, doing my annual cartwheel at the beach.