After having very long hair for a number of years, I chose my 35th birthday to do as I had considered for a long time and cut my hair very short.  When people asked me what made me decide to change my hairstyle so drastically, I quipped that it was the safest thing I could think to do to myself with a pair of scissors on my 35th birthday.  Forty did not affect me as deeply as thirty-five and thirty didn’t faze me at all as I was expecting my first child that year, but thirty-five was a bitch and so was I. 

Somewhere between putting on make-up to attract boys and shaving my legs in case I die in my sleep, I lost interest in tweezing my eyebrows and coloring my hair until it somehow becomes desirable to color it blue, causing me to resemble Einstein more than I care to admit.  I just never expected it to go this fast.  
I remember lying awake at night as a child worrying that my father would die; and what would I do then?  Andy’s been gone for several years now and I miss him; moreover, I miss the relationship I had with him as a young girl, before I realized he was only human, capable of stumbling.  I often tell my children stories about their grandfather, making them laugh and retort with accusations as to why I do and say the things I do.  Andy lives on this way and that makes me happy, hopeful that they will one day tell their own children stories of their mother with this same fondness and joy.  I too am aware of my human imperfection as my father must surely have been of his own, but his daughter’s respect and admiration long after his death would have pleased him greatly.
Sometimes I feel guilty for having children in this world and not being able to protect them their entire lives.  I wonder what the future holds in technology, medicine, and environment.  My father used to talk about inventions and how exciting he made them sound, seeing the car replace the horse and wagon and the television replace the radio.  It wasn’t until my adult life did computers take hold the way they have as I always felt my father lived in a much more interesting time regarding inventions than I did before that time.  What will my children see?  It seems that there is nothing left to invent, but surely there is much to accomplish and they will see a great deal of it.  Video is everywhere now, pitting safety against privacy.  Crime itself frightens me as it increases, it seems unlikely they will always be able to avoid it.  
I’ve always been disappointed and surprised by book and movie characters who, when offered three wishes by a genie, pick things that are either impossible or just wouldn’t be completely satisfying alone.  The ones who choose all the money in the world are greedy, but not practical.  While making wishes is certainly an excellent forum for greed, they just aren’t thinking things through all the way before making their wish.  Having lots of money must certainly be more fun if others have money too.  Eternal life is popular, I’m sure, but what could a genie devise that even DaVinci couldn’t figure out?  No, that would be a waste of a wish, although good health throughout a long life would bear consideration.  The idealistic wishers would opt for world peace, but that is even more impossible than getting all the money.  My wishes are greedy, but practical.  My carefully worded wishes would be for a long, healthy, painless, tragedy-free life with those I love experiencing the same, with plenty of all the things we need in a beautiful and peaceful place on earth, and hips that are impervious to chocolate.