"Age isn't a number; it's a perspective"

Despite all the mantras, this milestone is not easy.

you're only as old as you feel

you look so young!

think of all that you've accomplished

forty is the new thirty

Forty.

There, I said it.

I've been calling it the "tenth anniversary of my thirtieth birthday" for a while now. That seemed to take some of the sting out. But finally, in the last few weeks, I just decided to embrace it -- not because I am necessarily ready to admit that I'm middle-aged (and I'm pretty sure that's what 40 is, although running around after a four year old and a six year old doesn't really seem like a "middle-aged" thing to do) -- but because I have made peace with the fact that the number is largely irrelevant.

It's like the scale in my bathroom, whose numbers I discovered one summer only told half the story. That was the summer that I met a boy who taught me how to rock climb, and I went climbing two or three times a week for a few months. I gained five pounds and lost a whole clothing size. Apparently that thing the nutritionists tell you about muscle weighing more than fat is actually true. Ever since, I've treated the number on the scale with a certain healthy skepticism.

Today, I'm ready to do the same with my brand new age.

I remember the year I turned ten. TEN! 10. It was so exciting to have an age that took two whole numbers to write. I just knew my world was going to change. Endless possibilities were going to open up. There were going to be Things I Could Do, Things I was finally old enough to try. I don't remember whether any of those Things magically happened the day I turned ten, though I doubt that they did. I do remember, though, that sense of anticipation and excitement about getting older, the thrill of reaching a milestone.

And that is something I don't want to lose. Most of the major milestones society tells us to aim for--getting a degree (or several), getting married, having children--are ones that I've already reached. And yet, I still have half of lifetime (or more, I hope) to live. I think the reason turning 40 is hard is that it's not clear what milestone it marks: the 20s were all about graduate school, the 30s were all about starting a family and buying a house, the 40s are...

What are they?

It's too easy to get morose and think, well, the 40s are about admitting that you aren't young any more. That your knees hurt if you run too far, that you can no longer pull an all-nighter, even if you really really want to.

But I've decided that I'd rather focus on the other things.

The 40s are when my first book is going to be published (yes, it's true, it comes out this summer; it's an academic book, not one you'd probably want to read, but it's a for-real book with an honest-to-goodness university press publishing it and everything). The 40s are when I am finally going to learn to play tennis. When I am going to start sleeping again, now that the children aren't babies. When I'm going to introduce my kids to new foods, and watch them learn to read, and cheer them on in soccer games. When I'm going to carve out more time for cooking and writing and gardening. When I'm going to do my darndest to ensure that my children get bitten by the travel bug.

The 40s are when I'm going to keep myself young by more purposefully looking at the world through the wondering eyes of youth.

It feels good to make myself that promise.