So is 40 truly the new 30?

I spent the whole weekend celebrating my 40th year on this earth, with toasts with family and friends. I went shopping with gift cards I received. I worked out, threw out old clothes, gave away old books. All things so that I could feel that I passed through my own rite of passage. I felt I had marked the day sufficiently, and felt okay with turning 40. I was thankful for everyone I have in my life, and that they all wanted to help me ring in my 40th.

I feel at peace, shockingly, with all things in my life. Yet, somehow, I feel like nothing major is really different. i didn't expect to feel like a different person overnight, certainly. I also didn't expect it to be just another day. Somehow, I thought to myself, things will feel different.

The only thing that's really different is that I can't say I'm in my 30s anymore.

So how do I handle being the same, yet different?

And A New Day Begins...

This historic day compels me to start blogging again. What a night. Until tonight, I had never truly felt the full impact of what my parents did for us when they moved us here in the fall of 1981. And as I watch President-Elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech, I've never before been more grateful to anyone as I feel toward my parents right now. It's all sinking in, and it's more overwhelming than I would have imagined.

My parents gave up everything they had to give my brothers and me a chance to have big dreams and be given an opportunity to have them come true. As a teenager, I carried too much resentment because I thought they would only be happy if we fulfilled their dreams for us of becoming doctors and lawyers. But tonight, I realize what they really dreamed about was to have their children grow up in a country where anything is truly possible.

As I listen to President-Elect Obama repeat "Yes, We Can", I felt the full weight of our parents wishes for us. They wanted nothing more than for us to feel that we are a part of a country that is truly extraordinary for what we achieved tonight.

It is truly the dawn of a new day, not just for this country, but for all children of immigrants whose parents and other ancestors sacrificed so much to ensure that their children become citizens of the greatest country in the world.