The turning of 40

Today I turn 40. 
I promised myself I would do this and this is a promise I must keep. So hear goes:I’m tired. I’m tired of looking in the mirror and not celebrating what I see. I’ll rest that here.I’m tired of running away from my power because I am afraid of what my family, or friends, or that person on the internet who doesn’t even know me thinks. I’m going to leave that here.I’m tired of feeling ashamed of my extra bit of belly, or curve or that part of my body that does not want to be tamed. That stays here.I’m tired of all the ways I let fear shout louder than my love. From here on out, love wins.I’m tired of trying to explain what I do and why it keep shifting- a life lived, flows. From here, I’m with the flow.I’m tired of being spoken over, cut across, under valued, under represented, overly forgiving. That stops here.I’m tired of being tired. Here I rest, to begin again.These words, this, is a marker, a threshold, my rite of passage.As I step across I honour my late father Jimmy, whose big wild heart is wrapped up in mine, still gifting me his lessons in kindness and laughter every day. I thank him.
 And I honour my mother, Geraldine, my first home, who with one hand offers me her gifts of generosity, and with the other, reaches out with her gift of unconditional love; the essence of a mother. To this I give my heart.And I honour my grandmother, Molly, who sacrificed her own truth for the sake of her children’s belonging.
 And I honour my great-grandmother, who was silenced because she did not fit the mould, and whose silence has led me to find my own voice. I honour her, indefinitely.And to Ireland, this land of my birth, I honour her too. She tells me to listen to her wild ways, for not only is she beautiful she has the power to transform. She is in my blood.And to the ocean that wrapts it all up; I swim in my honour of her unfathomable depths, for she rises as storms do, then travels as the rain, nurtures the food that I eat and becomes, me. As I honour the ocean in me, I honour the ocean in you.These words I place as a marker.
 Now I step over them and declare, on this my 40th birthday:I will not let fear dominate or shame violate this body of mine.
 For I am the power of the ocean and the magnitude of the mountains. I am the wind and the rain.
 I am the wild woman and the forgotton voice.
 I am a white horse running with her wild.
 I am everything that woman contains.
 As I am womb, I am also home. 
As I am here, I am everywhere. As I am heart I am also the music of the heart beat.
 And if I am these things, then you, woman, you are these things too.I have stepped across into the flow on this wild edge of becoming. I declare: I am finally, home.