Lemon Cake Milestone

I have stopped counting chapters, but I have not stopped acknowledging milestones.  I used to ask Eric the proper usages of certain words or phrases.  "Are milestones only used for positive events?  You don't usually hear people describing morbid things as milestones,"  I would ask.    

All birthdays are milestones, which make a "milestone birthday" a "milestone-milestone."  Typically a milestone birthday is associated with a number that signifies some kind of importance:  16.  18.  21.  Then there are the zeros - 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, etc. 

In my case, this year's birthday was a milestone, but not of a number.  I turned 46. The number means absolutely no significance to me.  At 46, I feel fantastic.  I have a positive outlook on life.  I am physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy.  I have plenty of energy.  I don't owe anybody anything.  I don't eat much, need much, want much, spend much.  I am independent and self-sufficient.  I don't whine, get annoying or needy...OK, maybe just a little bit.  I am far from being "wise beyond my age," but I feel adequately smart.  Aren't all these great?

Yes, they are.  They really are great fortune, but these aren't milestones.  

My 46th birthday is a milestone-birthday because what fear I still have - and hold every right and reason to have - is ever, ever so slowly dissolving.  It's a milestone because I will no longer dignify fear with a name.  It's a milestone not because I am fearless, but I am gaining courage.  "Courage is not the absence of fear.  It is the act of going through with something in spite of fear."  

I don't "miss" Eric - "missing" him doesn't begin to remotely describe anything.  I think about him literally every waking moment.  When exactly would I have time, or the capacity, to miss him?