I turn 40 this month and I've been having a lot of mixed feelings about it.
Some days I embrace it.
Other days I dread it.
Every decade has been better than the last. My 20's were better than my teens. My 30's were infinitely better than my 20's--I got married, we adopted our dog, bought house, went to Hawaii. If the pattern holds, my 40's will be my best decade yet. So I should be looking forward to them, right?
If only it was that simple.
My body is changing and I don't like it. At all. The wrinkles. The skin issues. The joint problems. The slowing down of my metabolism (which honestly was never that great). The gray hair hasn't started yet, but I know it's coming. So is menopause, which always felt so far away and is now looming over me. I feel like I had finally learned to be comfortable in my own body and now it's morphing into something different and unrecognizable. I want it to stop.
But it's so much more than just the physical. Time moves so fast now, and it feels like it's running out, leaving me to wonder: What have I done with my life? I've never been one to have a five-year plan, ten-year plan. I have goals and I steadily work towards them. There are goals I've completed--I've supported myself with my writing. I bought a house. I traveled. I adopted a dog. Of course, there are also goals I haven't reached, ones I was certain I would have by now, but that doesn't actually bother me all that much. I'm still steadily working towards them. However, for the first time I'm truly aware that the end might come before I reach them. Time used to feel infinite. At 40, it's suddenly become finite.
I think Pamela Druckerman said it best: "At 40, we’re no longer preparing for an imagined future life. Our real lives are, indisputably, happening right now." It's not that I'm unhappy with my life. To the contrary, I'm content in a way I never thought I'd be. But when we graduate high school or finish college, the future is wide open with adventure, possibility, and opportunity. I can't help feeling the loss of all that.
Yet, when I look forward now, I'm no longer focused on all the big things I want to achieve or how I want my life to look. I'm more concerned with how I want my life to feel. I want to worry less. Enjoy more. Live in the present. Slow down. Savor.
It's a privilege to grow older, one denied to so many. On the days I struggle with fine lines and sunspots or my mortality, I remind myself to be grateful. And I am.
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