This Is 40.

By Alexandria Boddie

This Is 40.

It's what I want it to be, with wisdom applied.

It's wearing what I want, and taking responsibility for how I engage with my personal style.

It's drawing fierce boundaries around my me-time, and designating it for deep reflection, integrating the lessons learned in life, practicing naming my expertise, letting it bubble up within me.

Alexandria Boddie lays on a bed in a back yard, holding a glass of red wine.

It's giving deep thanks and gratitude to the body I'm in right now, even as I modify my diet and step up the exercise to achieve the body I want to inhabit

It's knowing I'm aggressively hot and unusually intelligent and using all that along with my perfect posture to get the things I want and need.

It's being unapologetically odd and excellent, while knowing that sometimes I might have to apologize for any harm I may have unintentionally caused.

A black and white photo. Alexandria Boddie wears sunglasses and is laying on a table with her legs pointed to the sky.

It's giving thanks to God for their blessings, it's giving thanks to my friends for their kindnesses and care, it's embracing my official status as The Eccentric Child-Free Auntie.

There's an image I've been playing in my head the past few years, of an extravagant blow-out party where all my treasured friends and family come together and we RAGE IT for my 40th birthday. But by May of this year, it was becoming clear to me that I'd have to let that (and other things) go. Thank goodness for intuition - by letting go, I've been able to receive so much that I never could have imagined for myself at the top of this year. 

Alexandria Boddie sits on a couch, wearing a robe.

To all my 40+ homegirls and role models: thank you so much for showing me what it means to get older with grace. We have so many choices available to us now that weren't there for our mothers and grandmothers. We can use what freedoms and privileges we have to stay physically healthy and strong, mentally flexible and curious, and emotionally honest. 

This is 40, and I can't believe how grateful I am to be here.

Thank you.

Alexandria Boddie

I'm a one-woman circus and the world's most passionate Grace Jones stan. Everything about your planet confounds me, except cats. Book me: hritalent.com


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