Thoughts on Turning 40
Alas, my thoughts on turning 40 are a fond memory, but my good friend, Jack at The Trail Fix, is turning 40 today. (He would love birthday wishes!) And he has been agonizing over it, which has caused me to recall my own thoughts on turning 40 several years ago.
As 40 approached in the far distance, I viewed it with apprehension and, let's face it, horror.
I looked back at 30 and remembered actually being excited about turning 30. For me, that was a statement: 'I'm a REAL grown-up now. You can take me seriously. I am a force to be reckoned with.'
Oh yeah, I LOVED turning 30. It gave me the confidence to become the cynical bitch I was meant to be.
But something happened between 30 and 40. It was mostly gravity. And frankly, before I noticed it on my face, I noticed it on my butt.
Now I have already admitted in a previous post that I am vain, so it should come as no surprise to you that on the day I realized that my butt was not where it used to be, I was horrified.
I was around 35. Now this is no laughing matter to women. Seriously. Even today, in the grocery store check-out line, there was a magazine that had a headline on the cover that read "Stop that drooping butt!"
So as 40 approached, I was becoming mildly hysterical, in a long-term kind of way. After my butt drooped at 35, I immediately joined a gym. Ok, not immediately. After I spent weeks complaining to Jagman that my butt was drooping and I needed the butt machine at the gym.
Now you have to realize what a huge step this whole process was for me. This was serious body maintenance, and my body, up until then, hadn't required much work. I had never exercised regularly in my whole life.
In fact, I will admit, that I almost didn't graduate from high school because I failed my phys ed requirement because I cut the class so much. Seriously. The vice principal had to talk to the gym teacher and convince her to let my friend and me make up our missed days. So my girlfriend and I walked around the track for 5 hours, 4 days in a row. Each day, before we started, we put our cigarette packs and lighters in our socks so we could sneak out into the pine trees every hour to catch a drag. Yeah, I was a real fitness fanatic.
So this really sucked. Now I needed to sculpt my body with exercise the way a plastic surgeon sculpts your face with a face lift. But once I got into the routine, I felt great. In fact, my legs, that had begun to hurt from standing on them all day, no longer ached. When I got stressed out, I felt better when I ran. My arms actually had strength for the first time in my life. I was amazed at how great I felt as I was approaching 40.
But I still agonized over it. For months. Now besides being vain, I am also somewhat materialistic. OK, I am a material girl. And significant life events call for jewelry.
So I started considering what kind of jewelry Jagman should give me for my 40 birthday. Honestly, this was a great move on my part. For my psyche, I mean. I started to get so focused on this jewelry thing, that I never really thought about the whole getting old, half your life is over thing. So we went to the jewelers about a month before the horrible day and designed a piece of jewelry. At one point, I was worried that it was costing too much, and I said something to the jeweler about scaling it back. And he said, "No, Jagman's not worried about that. You don't need to scale it back."
And then I realized:
That's the difference between 30 and 40. At 30 you realize what you can be; at 40, you are there. Not only mentally and spiritually, but financially you are in a place that you've worked toward for so many years. Your mortgage is less than the going rate for rent on an apartment. You can afford to do things you couldn't do before.
I love being in my 40's. It's the greatest decade so far. I thought 30 was the greatest when I was in it. But now 40 has all the power of wisdom combined with strength.
It's fabulous to me. You know who you are. I know that I am a vain bitch, a wild, crazy, intelligent, compassionate, sexy woman and if you don't like it, tough shit! That's being 40!
As 40 approached in the far distance, I viewed it with apprehension and, let's face it, horror.
I looked back at 30 and remembered actually being excited about turning 30. For me, that was a statement: 'I'm a REAL grown-up now. You can take me seriously. I am a force to be reckoned with.'
Oh yeah, I LOVED turning 30. It gave me the confidence to become the cynical bitch I was meant to be.
But something happened between 30 and 40. It was mostly gravity. And frankly, before I noticed it on my face, I noticed it on my butt.
Now I have already admitted in a previous post that I am vain, so it should come as no surprise to you that on the day I realized that my butt was not where it used to be, I was horrified.
I was around 35. Now this is no laughing matter to women. Seriously. Even today, in the grocery store check-out line, there was a magazine that had a headline on the cover that read "Stop that drooping butt!"
So as 40 approached, I was becoming mildly hysterical, in a long-term kind of way. After my butt drooped at 35, I immediately joined a gym. Ok, not immediately. After I spent weeks complaining to Jagman that my butt was drooping and I needed the butt machine at the gym.
Now you have to realize what a huge step this whole process was for me. This was serious body maintenance, and my body, up until then, hadn't required much work. I had never exercised regularly in my whole life.
In fact, I will admit, that I almost didn't graduate from high school because I failed my phys ed requirement because I cut the class so much. Seriously. The vice principal had to talk to the gym teacher and convince her to let my friend and me make up our missed days. So my girlfriend and I walked around the track for 5 hours, 4 days in a row. Each day, before we started, we put our cigarette packs and lighters in our socks so we could sneak out into the pine trees every hour to catch a drag. Yeah, I was a real fitness fanatic.
So this really sucked. Now I needed to sculpt my body with exercise the way a plastic surgeon sculpts your face with a face lift. But once I got into the routine, I felt great. In fact, my legs, that had begun to hurt from standing on them all day, no longer ached. When I got stressed out, I felt better when I ran. My arms actually had strength for the first time in my life. I was amazed at how great I felt as I was approaching 40.
But I still agonized over it. For months. Now besides being vain, I am also somewhat materialistic. OK, I am a material girl. And significant life events call for jewelry.
So I started considering what kind of jewelry Jagman should give me for my 40 birthday. Honestly, this was a great move on my part. For my psyche, I mean. I started to get so focused on this jewelry thing, that I never really thought about the whole getting old, half your life is over thing. So we went to the jewelers about a month before the horrible day and designed a piece of jewelry. At one point, I was worried that it was costing too much, and I said something to the jeweler about scaling it back. And he said, "No, Jagman's not worried about that. You don't need to scale it back."
And then I realized:
That's the difference between 30 and 40. At 30 you realize what you can be; at 40, you are there. Not only mentally and spiritually, but financially you are in a place that you've worked toward for so many years. Your mortgage is less than the going rate for rent on an apartment. You can afford to do things you couldn't do before.
I love being in my 40's. It's the greatest decade so far. I thought 30 was the greatest when I was in it. But now 40 has all the power of wisdom combined with strength.
It's fabulous to me. You know who you are. I know that I am a vain bitch, a wild, crazy, intelligent, compassionate, sexy woman and if you don't like it, tough shit! That's being 40!
penned by catherine ryan at 1:58:00 AM
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