I am celebrating a birthday this month and I do mean the entire month because I am so worth four and a half weeks of celebration. If not more.
This year it’s the Big. Four. Oh.
Again.
Since I distinctly recall not having had much of a birthday celebration the year I actually turned FortywithacapitalF, I thought I’d do a re-do this year. It’s only fair.
And complicated.
That’s because not-so-technically speaking, I’m much younger than Forty, since I started counting backwards when it came to my birthday several years ago (as in… many), in order to be better aligned with the moon when it’s in the seventh house and Jupiter has aligned with Mars and all that.
Did you know that your age changes according to which planet you’re from?
For example, if I were from Mars, instead of that being only a rumor, I would be approximately 23 years old in Martian years. And if I were from Mercury, I would be 182 years old, give or take a few light years.
Do they sell Oil of Olay on Mercury?
No?
I.
Am.
Not.
From.
Mars.
Men are from Mars.
And did you know there’s a silent knuckle sandwich in the expression on my face?
And they’re the nostrils of a 19-year-old, thank you very much.
Of course, Forty is just another word for “holy crap, where did Thirty go?”
Newsflash: Forty is not the new thirty.
Sure, today’s 40-year-old woman may ‘look’ better than my grandmother did at 40, according to People magazine’s standards, but my grandmother would’ve looked just as good as Christie Brinkley if she had had Chuck Norris as her personal trainer.
Okay, maybe not quite as good as Christie, but at least as good as Madeleine Albright.
She had pretty good legs, my grandma’, except for those cankles.
Times have definitely changed since the day when Forty meant:
over-the-hill,
moth-eaten,
decrepit,
one-foot-in-the-grave.
Come to think of it, back then, Forty was… the new DEAD!
I recall once, when I was going through my terrible twenties (when I had the knee caps of a 12-year-old), I referred to a 45-year-old woman as middle-aged.
I wish I were lying.
No joke, she took a running dive straight at me and pinned me to the floor, threatening to re-arrange my 20-year-old face. I tried to tell her that, technically speaking, forty-five was actually past middle age, when you consider that the average lifespan for a woman was approximately two times dead, but because her knee was crushing my sternum I could only give her the international sign for surrender.
Number One, my twenty-something baby girl, knows more at her age than I did when I was Thirty, let alone Forty. She is over-the-top smart, emotionally intelligent, mature, and extremely self-confident. I’d tell you how pretty she is but I know how you hate to hear a mother brag.
Hey!
Forty isn’t the new twenty, but maybe…
…twenty is the new Forty.
How deep and profound is that?
Maybe I really am from Mars.
Ummm…
More cake please!
