"When Harry Met Sally" by Kate Funderburk

Content advisory: This post contains mild adult humor meant for mature audiences.

On July 5, I turned 40, which is actually insane.  And yes, I do tell everyone I’m 40, even if they don’t ask and especially if they don’t particularly want to know.  

Maybe to the average person, this seems like bragging.  After all, they’re usually surprised because I look like I could be a pre-teen, mostly because of my height, or lack thereof (my appreciation for the art of the well-timed fart joke may also play a role).  In fact, at the school where I am the librarian, it has become a bit of a rite of passage for students when they surpass my height.  For the first student in the class for whom it happens, usually in the 2nd grade, it’s really mentally difficult for them to process being taller than a teacher.  They don’t realize it for a long time, because the concept itself is so bizarre that their brains don’t allow them to even consider the possibility.  But once that first student gets over it, there are years of students lining up back to back with me, seeing if they are yet part of that exclusive “I’m taller than the librarian” club, which eventually, almost everyone ends up joining.

And for the second time in my life, I’m starting to really identify with an SNL Molly Shannon character.  As someone educated in Catholic schools, I felt a real, soulful connection with Mary Katherine Gallagher (also, I’m Kathryn Mary, so, you know…)  

If you don’t know who this person is, stop right now, do yourself a favor, and Google “Mary Katherine Gallagher,” and waste enrich the next half hour of your life watching SNL skits from the ‘90s.  Or just know that Mary Katherine Gallagher is a student at St. Monica’s High School.  She isn’t part of the “in” crowd, but deep down, she knows she’s fabulous, and no matter how many people laugh at her, she is always setting out to prove it, singing, dancing, and performing monologues from various made-for-TV movies.  In the process, she typically ends up crashing into a bunch of metal folding chairs, showing her baggy granny panties, and revealing details, such as when she gets nervous, she puts her hands under her sweaty armpits, then sniffs her hands.

Aside from the obvious similarities, there was something in Mary Katherine that spoke very deeply to my teenage (and subsequent) self.  It was this acknowledgement that any attempt of mine to fit into some box or somehow not be weird would, indeed, backfire, so I may as well let my crazy out and see where it landed.  I stopped worrying about giving myself insulin shots in the middle of restaurants.  I performed my CF farts loudly and proudly.  I did home IVs on the subway (don’t worry, it’s a Boston subway–no one looked up).  And while it could be lonely sometimes, it was the only way I knew how to be.  And if someone pronounced something I said as “awkward,” I would casually reply, “I think you mispronounced awesome.”

But now I’m 40, and it’s time to move past identifying with an awkward teenager.  Enter Miss Sally O’Malley.

If you don’t know who this person is, stop right now, do yourself a favor, and Google “Sally O’Malley,” and waste enrich the next half hour of your life watching SNL skits from the ‘90s.  Or just know that Sally O’Malley’s tagline is, “My name is Sally O’Malley.  I’m 50 years old, and I like to kick, and streeetch, and KICK!”  

I imagine Sally to be a grown-up version of Mary Katherine.  Or maybe just a grown-up version of me.  Because Sally is still awkward.  Very awkward.  But now, she owns it.  And she knows, awkward is awesome.  She doesn’t have to prove it–she shows it off because it is her responsibility to the world to share her awesomeness with everyone she can.  She tries out for the Rockettes, the police academy, and as a pole dancer.  At one point she takes over as the choreographer for the Jonas Brothers, and at another she faces off with Betty White.  And she always ends every routine with a glorious, “I’M FIFTY!!!!!”

And when I proclaim to the world that I’m 40, it is bragging, but not in the way others might think.  If 40 is “over the hill,” I’m announcing to everyone, “Hey guys, I made it up here, and the view is great!”  As I notice more and more silver hairs poking out of my scalp, it’s as if they’re announcing to the world, “I wouldn’t mess with this lady if I were you–she’s seen some real shit.”  As my spirit animal Sally O’Malley would say when asked at the strip club if she’s ever given a lap dance, “Honey, I’ve done more laps than Seabiscuit.”  

I’M FORTY!!!!!!!!!!!!