Three weeks before the turn of the year I turned forty-one. Turning forty was easy, was just a number, a notch on the invisible calendar under my skin. But this birthday brought a few new gray hairs, the tiny crinkle of crow's feet around eyes that looked just a little bit... old. Old. I stood before the bathroom mirror, tried to remember my face at thirty, at twenty, but a tired woman of four-plus decades returned my gaze.