40. The big 4-0. 40th birthday. I officially hit 40 at the end of August, and people should write books about the mind game of being a woman and mother entering her forties.
Turning 40 here and there bothered me, but I am much more secure in my body and where I am than ever before. When I turned 30, I still compared myself to friends and colleagues. I wasn’t where I wanted to be in my life and career, and I thought I should be much further. I felt life was getting by me faster than ever. I grew so much in my 30s as a person. The last ten years have brought various milestones, including becoming a wife at 31, a mother at 33, and hitting career goals by 38. With every peak, there is a valley through time, including multiple pregnancy losses, a global pandemic, and career changes not by choice but by necessity. Overall, it was a decade of change and growth.
And then I rounded 40. Life in my 30s gave me a sense of who I am, becoming the mother I want to be and the partner to support a healthy marriage. I’ve never been more secure with my marriage, identity, and career than when I hit 40. There is a freedom in letting go. I recently saw a quote: “So many people from your past know a version of you that no longer exists. Carry on.” This is genuinely how I feel at this point in time. Every version of me has led me to today; I don’t recognize those previous versions.
Additionally, there is so much in our faces as women turn towards “life after 40,” as if we are pivoting into an unknown and new world. I see articles on “getting fit after 40,” “sex after 40,” and “mothering after 40” as though hitting this age transforms us into different people entirely. I’ve seen on social media that I need to rethink how to apply my makeup, add a 20-step skin routine (ok, not really), make sure I drink plenty of water, take the right vitamins, read certain books, and so on.
Granted, our bodies start changing, and we start looking at what life beyond childbearing years entails. That in itself is a grief process. We start looking at how to support our bodies as we age and begin more of a method of “maintaining.” I have five years until my first colonoscopy, and just scheduled my first mammogram. I have started looking a little closer at the fine lines around my eyes and question if I should begin to use Botox. For the first time, the life I have lived and the life ahead of me have similar emotions, bittersweet. I am closer to retirement age than when I graduated high school.
It’s a mind game of realizing you are still young, but the future looks different. I’m not planning for my house, family, and career. I checked those boxes; it’s looking beyond what else the rest of my life has to offer. In many ways, the social norm is to be afraid of 40. Scared you’re getting older. I hope to embrace it with a renewed purpose, and that age is just a number.
