Turning Forty.

Misery loves company, and as most of you know, I am feeling very miserable to be turning forty next week. So my inner journalist went into collection mode and I started interviewing everyone I met regarding their thoughts on ‘passing over’ into the big Four Oh.

Mario, the kids Karate Sensei, turns forty next year and he’s already in the early stages of mourning the demise of his thirties. According to him as soon as he’s forty he will be too old to act childish. In his thirties he could act juvenile, but as soon as he’s in his forties he won’t be able to get away with that sort of behaviour. When the clock strikes midnight, his forties begin, a giant cosmic switch flicks, and responsible behaviour and maturity commence. This from the man who pretends to throw children out of the first floor window on their birthdays… maturity, I think not.

A mom I chatted to at a recent birthday party told me she felt fantastic. She said she was more decisive, self-aware, and knew what she wanted from her life now that she was forty-six. She’d had her children and was now pursuing her career with the confidence that she could control every situation. It helped that she looked fantastic and had that ageless skin and radiance that only an African skin can produce. I looked carefully and she didn’t even have wrinkles around her eyes! In my next life, I want to be black! Another mom decided that she wanted to learn to play the cello and started taking lessons. They both seemed to feel that turning forty was not the end of an era but the beginning of one, a time in their lives when they knew what they wanted and had the drive and will power to get it.

I need only look at my Mom and Dad to know that ambition and vitality has no age restriction. My Mom will be exhibiting her sculptures in both Germany and Portugal this year. She only started to sculpt in her late thirties. Dad will be driving people to do better and more dynamic things at companies where he owns shares. They taught me that age was just a number and that you were as old you felt, or to paraphrase Dad; “You are as old as the woman you are feeling”… har de har har!

Unusually, my father-in-law made the most impact. He said, “Just wait till you get to sixty-five!” I caught a hint of regret in his tone. Here was a man I consider very active, he hikes, has recently remarried, to a woman ten years his junior, and is always travelling somewhere. Yet he’s anxious about turning sixty-five. I mulled that over and realised that he was right; each cycle has it’s scary ages. The decade birthdays seem to be pivotal. They make us reflect and take account of where we are, and hasten change to otherwise stagnating lives.

Maybe this is what a midlife crisis feels like, it’s the fear of the unknown, of knowing that life has given you another forty years that you have to fill; and still enjoy. That fear could explain why men buy flashy cars and try to recapture their youth, the times they felt the most vigorous. While women veer towards intellectual endeavours; like the cello; or a degree they may never be able to use. The hormones that were pushing us to create life finally quieting a little so that we could hear what we really wanted to do. I’m lucky to have goals, a supportive family, a husband who loves me, children who adore me, a brain that’s hungry for knowledge and plenty of time to enjoy it all. Bring on the forties, I’m ready for you!