I turned 46 today.

In addition to my traditional gifts of chocolate cake, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and completing a series of projects around the house, my husband gave me a pair of TARDIS earrings.

I hadn’t been feeling particularly reflective about this birthday (unlike previous years), but these earrings triggered a chain of thoughts that led me to see, after 45 years of life, I am bigger on the inside.

Folks familiar with Doctor Who, please forgive a momentary digression while I explain. In short: the TARDIS is the “phone box” that Doctor Who travels in – at least it looks like a British phone box on the outside, but for those lucky enough to go inside the TARDIS, they discover an entire spaceship (for lack of a better word). And the running gag of the series is for first-time visitors to the TARDIS to stop and stare in amazement, and exclaim, “It’s bigger on the inside!”

While I typically focus on the incremental changes to my exterior – a pound here, a gray hair (or twelve) there – that’s our culture talking, drawing my attention (and everyone else’s) to what’s shriveling and breaking down as I age. I want to celebrate what’s growing and expanding in me – my intentional shift from the self-centered youth to the other-focused adult. I want to dig deep and bring my interior to the exterior, to give some air and light to person I’m trying so hard to be.

I believe we are all bigger on the inside, but, like the Doctor, we only reveal ourselves to a select few. Well, not me. Not anymore. I declare year number 46 my year of open doors. Allons-y!