Making the Year I Turn 40 Something Spectacular

I am officially in my last chapter of my thirties and I have every intention of making the year I turn 40 something spectacular.

Making the Year I Turn 40 Something Spectacular

In six months I will turn forty – a number that sounds both foreign and unexceptional as I have plenty of friends who’ve celebrated the milestone (my husband included). I remember turning twenty, woefully wishing I was celebrating twenty-one so I could finally enter a bar without a fake ID. I recall my thirtieth birthday, half thinking it was a big deal to leave my childish twenties, but also okay with 30 since I had become an adult and entered motherhood. As I approach 40, I stare at the birthday with so many thoughts – words I want to publish so I don’t forget (and stay true to).

Why does 40 hold so much power?

Deep down I know it is just a number, but I still take pause when I think about society’s implications of the milestone. Lordy, lordy look who’s forty! Wrinkles, perimenopause, gray hairs, reading glasses, and a slower metabolism is what the internet says your forties are made of. Life begins at 40! The internet also says middle adulthood is a dynamic time for self-reflection or a reset or pivot towards something new. What if I don’t want anything to change?

Is it because I don’t feel like I have truly been alive for forty years? The number itself carries so much weight, yet in my mind, it doesn’t seem to fit. Forty years is a vast stretch of time—long enough to accumulate countless memories, experiences, and transformations. It has been a journey of highs so exhilarating they felt like they could last forever, and lows so deep they threatened to consume me. And then, there have been all the moments in between—the quiet, the mundane, the ones that slip through the cracks of memory yet still shape who I am.

Perhaps time isn’t measured in years but in the way we have lived them.

I am becoming increasingly aware of the juxtaposition of our time on Earth – it is both fleeting and infinite. Last week I wrote about the negative effects of nostalgia on mental health, not because I am one to be consumed by nostalgia, but more so since I am guilty of longing for moments passed. Since beginning therapy in 2020, I’ve been working hard to stay present in the moment, even when it feels challenging.

Watching my daughters move through their day, doing what they love to do without hesitation, inspires me to do just the same. The year I turn 40 is when I train myself to nourish my mind, move my body, and feed my soul without any extra effort. From cooking and eating delicious food to practicing hot yoga and my photography, from tap dancing to reading new books to watercolor painting – nothing is ever holding me back but my own free will. My mental list of “Things to Do that Make My Heart Sing” can be limitless.

I will (and can) do hard things.

I had a revelation during a very difficult hot yoga class this week: I actually enjoy the hard stuff. I like how it feels when I can only focus on that one task at hand – which is rare when there are sometimes 7 different tracks playing in my mind. A great amount of self-regulation is required during a powerful vinyasa flow – and I admit I never appreciated a fast and furious vinyasa until now. What used to feel like torturous and pointless repetitive movements has now become soothing. Mentally. Physically. Spiritually.

When every day life can be hard for reasons out of your control, it feels incredible to choose to do something intentionally difficult. Four sets of 25 abdominal exercises. Mastering the flick of my paintbrush to make a realistic hydrangea leaf. Six sets of Surya Namaskara A. Memorizing two new counts of 8 in tap class. I find myself craving the required deep concentration to do hard things – as well as the rush of pride when I’ve accomplished the task.

Knowing that I don’t have full control of whatever is to come is not going to hold me back from making the year I turn 40 something spectacular – as well as every year after it.