Reflections upon turning 40
Today is my 40th birthday, and I have been feeling many feelings.
Excitement, because it is my birthday and I frankly enjoy being showered in affection and subjected to the high-variance hijinks of my little brood.
Restless impatience, because there is so much I want to do and haven’t done, and my mom died at 62 and my cholesterol is high and who knows how much time I even have left…
Then terror, because… 40?? The age Sally freaks out about “someday” approaching in When Harry Met Sally? The age at which one is officially considered “middle-aged”? The age that so many of history’s great talents, like MLK Jr and Michelle Trachtenberg and Frederick Chopin and George Gershwin, never even reached?
And then I told my husband Matt of my grand plan to write a post that catalogues what various great builders had and hadn’t accomplished yet by the time they were 40, and he twisted his eyebrows in scorn. “You’re thinking about this so completely wrong,” he said. And when I rushed in to mount some sort of half-hearted defense he immobilized me with: “You are one of the richest and happiest people who ever lived.”
So then I sat there and tearfully took it in, surrendering to the fact that it was true. Once again, I had slipped into measuring my life against a drill sergeant’s checklist, myopically focusing on discrete “attainments” absent any elevated view of what I am building: the dense web of beloved projects and people and places and prized possessions and peak experiences I have soldered together into a singular, joyfully abundant life.
From that elevation, the impatience and terror faded to light wisps of worry, mostly in smiling tribute to my inner drill sergeants and their well-meaning neuroticism. In their place, two new feelings emerged: in looking back, a flood of gratitude—to whom? to myself, to Matt, to my kids, to my friends and colleagues and clients and every human who has ever touched my life, to the fact of existence itself—and, in looking ahead, a kind of trepidatious resolve: a sense of the vast space of possibility for reaping still further joy and abundance from these remaining 40 years, and a kind of inward nudge toward navigating it wisely, lest I forget that joy and abundance are not the default.
Given Matt’s preternaturally healthy relationship with aging and mortality, it is no wonder he came up with the perfect exercise to do on the occasion of turning 40 himself 3 years ago: after mapping the first half of his life on a timeline from 0 to 40, he then mapped the projected second half on a timeline from 40 to 80. (The whole thread is well worth reading, and gives a more explicit account of the perspective I’m only briefly gesturing at here.) I’ve been recommending this “life mapping” exercise to clients and friends ever since, but only today am I coming to understand its function more fully: it is a retrospective and a roadmap, not for one isolated project, but for the most complex mega-project you will ever build.
So without further ado, I present to you: my retrospective and my roadmap. Elsewhere I have and will continue to elaborate on many of the episodes and aspirations represented here, but for now I prefer to let it speak for itself.
Some of my immediate takeaways from this exercise:
A decade is way longer than I tend to assume. Seeing how much I’ve managed to do and how much my life has changed in the decade from 30 to 40, despite almost never feeling like I’m moving “fast enough,” gives me a wholly different perspective on what I can expect from each of the decades ahead.
I am only going to be actively parenting for about 16 more years (which, ok, duh, but this is not something I naturally think about or factor into my life design!). Seeing that fact visualized 1) makes every moment of the next 16 years feel uniquely precious and scarce, and 2) makes salient the prospect of nearly 3 decades in which I will have dramatically more free time and flexibility than I have today, with all the wealth and wisdom I will have gained in the meantime.
Getting old is actually kind of awesome. (Damnit, Matt, one of these days you WILL be wrong about something! Good thing I have 4 more decades to prove it…)
Hi Gena,
Happy birthday and thanks for sharing your feelings and your thoughts.
This year I turned 75, so I can give you some insights of what it’s like at this stage in life and what I learned from past experience.
About: “A decade is way longer than I tend to assume.”
The older I get, the decades seem shorter and shorter. I think it has to do with the proportion in relation to the lived-life.
Yes, enjoy every minute of parenting, of your love life, and, very important, your routine.
About the routine: I realized how important it is during some scary moments when I seriously worried about my health (fortunately favorably resolved.)
I was so happy to go back to my everyday life!
About “The prospect of nearly 3 decades in which I will have dramatically more free time and flexibility than I have today, with all the wealth and wisdom I will have gained in the meantime.”
The older I get, the more time spent trying to stay alive and functioning (exercises for body and mind, doctors appointments, tests.) Sometimes I wonder how I run out of time now that I’m retired, but I do.
Proactive screening, early detection and treatment, prevention should start early, at your age (Cholesterol! Everything equal, we have 50% chances of dying of cardiovascular disease.)
I agree with you. I learned to focus on all I have achieved in my work and family domain and relish it.
I tell myself:
I have had 40 years of fantastic love life. No-one can take that away. I’m ahead, no matter what happens.
I had 45 years of a medical profession. I made interesting, difficult diagnosis, I saved lives…
I created a dynasty starting with 3 wonderful children…
I wrote 5 books and got an agent and a publisher…
Worries and regrets are a waste of time. I can’t do anything about regrets and, in my experience, 85% of the time the things I worry about won’t come true. I try to postpone the worry to when something does happens. (Ragnar’s conversation in Atlas Shrugged helped me.)
I’m still learning not to worry about some things I cannot do anything about, including my adult children’s choices, and yes, death and dying. (It helps having a life partner with a “healthy relationship with aging and mortality”. Luckily, my husband Peter has it as well.)
John Lennon was right.
The teacher gave him an assignment: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
He wrote: “Happy.”
Teacher: “You don’t understand the assignment.”
John: “You don’t understand life”
I try to keep in mind that HAPPINESS is the purpose of life, not discovering the cure for aging, winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine, selling millions of books…
When I didn’t feel happy driving home, I got a divorce at the age of 34.
When I didn’t feel happy driving to work, I conquered and entered a Cardiology program at the age of 48.
Yes, it’s great having a purpose you can keep for the rest of your life.
Having goals and purposes is essential at any stage of life. My new career as an author can continue as long as I can keep my brain (See above about keeping up with your health.)
Yes, “Getting old is actually kind of awesome.”
The alternative is a lot worse, trust me. Still, growing old is not for sissies.
By the way, Gena, your life span plan is way too short! 75 is the old 50 (today’s middle age.)
All the best for your next 60+ years ;)
getting old is *really* awesome