Found this article online and felt that it expressed how I felt about turning 40. It was a pretty long article so I did some editing.
Turning 40
By Kim Dziobak
Most of us, at one point or another, take a moment to evaluate our lives and the paths that we have chosen to take. We each do it at different times and with different emphasis. Sometimes people do it around high school or college graduation time, when deciding what career to pursue, how we want to be regarded by society, friends, and family or how to transition ourselves from a student to a grown up.
Some people do the evaluative process when planning for a family. Sometimes it takes the illness or death of a family member, or some other tragic event to make us stop and see if we are taking our life in the right direction.
For many of us, however, hitting a certain age can cause one to stop and take pause. This happened to me last summer. I had just hit the big 3-9 and I realized that in less than one year I would be 40 years old. Now, I have been saying and believing that today’s 40 is yesterday’s 30, but I was still a bit shocked at the prospect that I would soon be what I had always considered middle aged.
Part of the problem for me with aging is that I never “feel” my age. I have this preconceived notion about what a person should be feeling or doing at a given age. I am always surprised though that I never match up with what my notion is. I have also realized that no one ever wants to be their real age. Teenagers try everything to look older, sometimes even getting fake IDs to get into clubs and bars. Then once we hit 21, that magic age of “real” adulthood, something happens and we start to feel like we should begin shaving off years to continue to be young. The older we get the more years we shave off.
So in turning 40, I started to think about what that meant. I remember that when my parents turned 40, I thought that it did seem old. Today, I don’t feel like I thought 40 would feel. I certainly don’t feel old; I certainly don’t feel like 20 either! So how am I supposed to feel? How am I supposed to act? Do I have to be more serious and mature? Am I suppose to start looking into botox, or getting plastic surgery? Should I start buying sensible shoes? Do I need to start stocking my medicine cabinet differently?
Turning 40 is making me look at my life and the things that I have accomplished differently. What I am realizing is that I really do have some good stuff under my belt. I am realizing that I am the only one holding me back and that I can have another 40 remarkable years if I let myself. I am beginning to truly believe that age is only a number and that the soul is only as old as you feel. In my research, there aren’t any hard and fast rules for how 40 acts or thinks or feels.
I AM 40 AND PROUD! I hope that when I turn 60 and start to evaluate my life again, I will look over the previous 20 years and see accomplishments, advancements, and wonderments that are only dreams now. I hope that I see that I was happy with my life, and myself. I want to see that my family and friends continued to bring me joy and completeness, and that I have shared more of myself with them. I hope to see that I have continued to grow personally and professionally and that I have more in my life to be grateful for. And mostly I hope that at 60 I feel as great and proud as I do today!
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