“It’s my year!,” I keep saying. Most people say this when they’re planning to do something great or accomplish a big goal on which they’ve been working hard (which I’m open to as well). In this case, my big thing is that I’m turning 40. I am excited! I truly am flabbergasted, too. How can I have just graduated from high school when it’s been 22 years since I’ve graduated from high school? How can I still visit the sleepaway camp (where I spent my college summers) and easily regress into the mindset of my glory days, but also be considered “old?”
It seems that when we are young (as in adolescence through early adulthood) we think that somehow we will recognize and know when we turn old. Like there’s a switch or a portal through which to cross, acknowledging, “Ah, yes, I have arrived at “Old,” and henceforth it shall be my identity; watch as I fade into the background now.”
NO! I am here to tell you no. Yes, my knees click and yes, I pulled a muscle trying to do a cartwheel last summer, but I refuse to concede that my best days are behind me. There isn’t an agreed-upon age when we accept that everything is “downhill from here.” Not without a fight, anyway. How can we make clear delineations when we are still in the same physical bodies we always have been? The same brain has been learning, growing, and evolving over time. My body is aging, yes, but I am still the same “me” at my core, and I won’t switch identities per some arbitrary date. There is no break between which the two halves of our lives are assessed and reevaluated before moving onto the second act. This is an intermission-free show, and we have to roll with it without stopping. I’m older- now, and now, and now.
If we are truly the same person, why do we freak out about getting older?
I’m still the person who can laugh at the same stories for the millionth time, just like I did when they first happened. How can I have aged to the point where teenagers shudder at my presence? We invented cool back in our day, you know what I mean? *Newsflash: we didn’t.* No one does, yet everyone thinks they did, because that’s the right of passage for the target audience of the latest trends. We held the proverbial trophy for a time, and now it’s been passed on to the next generation.
There are new legends, and they’re already recycling the trends that were just going out of style when we were coming up. They think we are uncool. Wasn’t it just yesterday when we were making fun of our parents for their embarrassing sneakers, pant waistlines and sock heights? I swear it was.
The thoughts and fears about being bumped off the “cool” pedestal are real, and they’re valid. But as the dumbfounded look fades from my face, what follows is this inner warmth. I don’t actually care about being up there anymore. I think the warmth I feel is gratitude. I am happy to have survived what I have been through, and to have the privilege of celebrating another birthday. I nestle into a comfy cushion that is the wisdom I have gained in all my inexplicably large number of years. I think it’s okay to have a quiet air of satisfaction when the youngins cringe at me, because I know that they don’t know what they don’t know. And I don’t know it all, but I know something about living, about learning hard lessons, and about caring less and less what others think of me as the years go by. It’s freeing, and I see their judgment of their elders as a cage that I am finally breaking free from. That part feels good.
Regardless of how much confidence our experiences have afforded us, the awareness of our age can stop us in our tracks. Some deal with it better than others.
I don’t quite relate to the “midlife crisis,” which I see as a sudden realization that we may no longer embody the qualities that made us our most vibrant selves in the past. It’s quite an identity shift, and it can lead to erratic behavior like the cliché of buying an impractical sports car out of the blue. People on the outside can observe and criticize, scoffing at how the crisis victim seems to be surprised they’re turning 40, or 50, or 60 (or however long it takes for the “oh shit” moment to sink in), as if it snuck up on them. But, I admit, it DOES sneak up on us! We are out here living, working on our goals in the weeds of day-to-day life, when we notice that the milestone birthday that’s approaching is one that we used to consider “old.” Forty seems dreadfully old to the teenagers we once were, but as I approach it, I no longer see it that way. The goalpost of “old” keeps getting pushed further and further along, and it means we have to evolve our mindset into a paradigm where aging can mean opportunity and not demise.
When speaking about female aging, it’s impossible to ignore aesthetics. Turning 40 feels like a milestone that says “you’d better start worrying about your face if you haven’t already.” There are expensive creams and masks to buy, and even more costly procedures to be had. I can’t help but feel inferior when I’m around those with Botox and/or fillers. My flawless, porcelain forehead of yesteryear is gone, replaced by molded clay that betrays my years on Earth. I look old by comparison, and I know it. I have yet to dive into the pool of injections, but I maintain that people should do what makes them feel good, so I have nothing but props for those that care for themselves in those ways. I have been resistant to needles and procedures partly because of their cost-prohibitive nature, and partly because I don’t want to want it. I want to not care. I want to be like Diane Keaton and Sally Field, whom I have always admired for “aging gracefully.” Unfortunately, I don’t have their wealth or their cheekbones, so I’m not yet sure how that will work out for me.
Jane Fonda (a beauty who has proudly embraced anti-aging procedures) recently wrote an excerpt for the We Can Do Hard Things book by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle. She spoke about how, when she was turning 60, she reflected on her life and realized just how brave of a person she was. I suspect she’s referring to her activism along with achieving ongoing relevance in Hollywood for all these years (among other things). I can’t relate to her experiences, but I paused for a long time at her passage. As I approach 40, I think I deserve credit for my own bravery as well. I think we probably all do.
I left home at 17 for college knowing virtually no one. I put myself out there in the mass of 40,000 undergraduate students also trying to find their sense of belonging. At 20, I studied abroad in a country where I barely spoke the language, traveling most of the time without a working cell phone. I mastered a foreign metro system, navigated multiple different countries and cities without a guide or directions or someone who spoke my language. I then went to a different college where I also started out completely alone, 400 miles from my boyfriend and family. I stuck with a long-distance relationship for five years before finally getting to live in the same zip code as him. I started a job in a setting where I never even had an internship, knowing no one (again). I helped care for and then lost my beloved Dad over the course of 17 brutal months. We buried him when I was five months pregnant, and managed the devastating pain of knowing he would never meet our babies. I’ve experienced childbirth thrice- once unmedicated. I went back to school for holistic nutrition and pursued other certifications in my quest to understand our bodies and our health better. I started a business based on wanting to help people navigate their own health in a better way, while still working full-time. I worked in a nursing home during the entirety of the pandemic. I advocated for myself to receive cancer screenings I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten, which eventually led to the decision to have a prophylactic double mastectomy at 39 years old.
I am not going to lie, it was cathartic to make this list and I highly encourage all of you to do the same. Dare I say, I’m… proud of myself? Yeah, I am. Writer and happiness researcher Gretchen Rubin calls this a “Ta-Da List,” encouraging us to celebrate our wins– even to write them down– and reflect on our accomplishments, however big or small.
So in short, I want to thank ME (I’m kidding). In reality, I want to thank everyone in my life that has influenced me and supported me along this journey to 40 years of age. The same age that I can remember my Dad celebrating my Mom back when I was nine. He and Mom’s best friend planned a party and put up signs throughout our neighborhood that said “Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s Forty,” and other equally “hilarious” sayings. She was mortified as well as delighted to be celebrated.
I say “It’s my year” because I am proud to be headed into my forties. I can’t lie, I am savoring every last day of my thirties, too. But I will be ready, because it feels ungrateful and short-sighted to be complaining about relative youth- especially when in good health. It’s almost my turn to be mortified and delighted. And that about sums up how I feel about this upcoming milestone.
It’s an honor and a privilege.
XO, Amy
P.S. This picture is me at 39, with my mom at her 70th birthday party.