As I am swiftly approaching my 49^th birthday, I’m bursting at the seams in more ways than one. In a figurative way, I am bursting out of the 40s, hanging on (by my claws?) to this last precious year as a “40-something” which I plan to relish to the fullest. I so want my 40s, all of them, to have been fabulous. But the truth is, they haven’t been.

The other bursting is taking place down here on the battleground, where the dailiness of life happens, where I am literally bursting out of the seams of my clothes.

Four years ago, while going through my divorce, I was thin as a bean. “Wow, you look great!” I heard from left and right, and so in a manic attempt at convincing myself that it was all happening for a reason, I created a mental connection between the skinny me and the “a-okay.” Funny thing is, I was miserable, of course. But it felt great to be slender, even fitting back into my wedding gown from 23 years prior, which I wore to the Purim Carnival that year with the sign “mail order bride” dangling morosely from my neck.

Today, shimmying into my stretchy jeans, cursing under my breath at what I’d like to call the shrinkage factor of the dryer cycle, I’m puzzled at the bursting. I am happy, I tell myself. I have come such a long, long way, I confirm, doing a quick mental inventory of all the self-improvement, mindfulness, yoga, hypnosis and therapy sessions I have been part of in the last four years. I am doing what I love, my children are healthy, I am loved. Breathe in, breathe out. My bra feels tight, damn it.

True to form, in my over-thinking mind, I begin to ponder: Maybe I’m not happy. I may be telling myself that I am, when in fact, I may be faking it. With all the awful recent world events that social media brings too close, too often, it’s enough to make the most balanced Zen chick weepy, compulsively pouring the scotch and piling on the French cheese on those gluten free organic crackers. And then there are all those lingering haunting thoughts about one’s past: “what it I had just…” Maybe in this life of mine, bursting as it is with goodness, blessings and possibilities, I am also lying to myself?

However, deep down I know that what I am bursting with, is not just empathic pain for the exterior world, but also, still, the emotions of the slow and arduous path to my own emotional recovery. I also recognize that, like the glistening and plump seeds bursting forth from the cracked open pomegranate, the traditional fruit of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, from which yields a glorious nourishing elixir, I have the ability to feed my soul with the stuff of my bursting.

If I only put my mind to it.

Fortunately, I don’t have to wait until December 31^st to make my New Year’s resolutions, because the Jewish New Year is right around the corner. Moving forward, I want to be compassionate, not to bear down too hard. The resilience and enthusiasm I know is part of my temperament must carry me forward, and I will burst ahead with more gratitude, and less tears, at what truly seems a sacred life.