Ringing in the year...

This may not be the most original blog entry you’ll ever read, but there is something about turning 40 that has, through the ages, caused many to want to write about it.  Now, it’s my turn.

There’s a lot of buildup to this milestone birthday, including an expectation that one will mourn their ‘youth’ or that turning 40 will somehow make one feel especially ‘old’, or ‘over the hill’, or some other strange and magical feeling that comes with this rite of passage.  Perhaps it’s a good thing I didn’t take my cue on how to feel from certain earlier memories.  For example, I remember watching members of my family attain that age, and seem to recall that in one case their friends held a ‘wake’ (in jest!), and in another case a rather large billboard was placed on a busy road in front of their place of business letting everyone know.  In that same spirit, I recall that for myself, turning 30 was rather traumatic (insert tongue firmly in cheek).  My sisters managed to present me with a host of gifts for the geriatric set… including denture cleaner,  and Depend^® (adult disposable briefs for incontinence for those who don’t know this brand name), and many other…you know… really useful items for a person having just left her 20s. 

What some are not told (*looking accusingly at friends and family with a smirk*) is that something happens in that decade between 29 going on 30 and 39 going on 40… that causes one not to mind.  Perhaps it’s just me.  Perhaps it’s a function of the fact that I’m in a very happy transitional time in life and excited about all this next year has to bring. 

There appears to be some truth in the Abraham Sutzkever’s saying “If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older”.  After all, I still get excited about birthdays!  Even this one.  In fact, I found myself staying up until Midnight, counting down the last minutes of my 30s, and happily ringing in my 40^th year much as if it were New Year’s eve into New Year’s Day.  However, there was no celebration in Times Square, no ball dropping, no champagne toast, no good luck kiss, no Auld Lang Syne, or fireworks.  It was simply a quiet acknowledgement with a confident smile. 

I think I’m going to love being 40…

For now, I won’t look much farther forward than that.