24. Turn 40

Okay, I'm behind on posts, but this was a big one.

A few summers ago, I was in a pool with a man ten years younger than me. The pool was in the center of a massive apartment complex and it was a Saturday night, so the usually abandoned facilities were full of people having little weekend gatherings. There were BBQ stands smoking, people out on their balconies looking over the water, folks steaming in the tiny hot tub. One group had set out lots of food and were mixing drinks and talking more and more loudly from the cabanas. The radio was getting louder, too, playing Kesha’s greatest hits. It looked like a birthday party.

“There’s something wobbly about people in their mid-thirties,” said the younger man, observing them. “They’re like fawns learning to walk in a new demographic.”

A bit taken aback, I replied, “Those are my people you’re talking about.”

He was trying to sleep with me, so he answered with something reassuring about my eternal youth. I walk like a massive, confident deer. But I thought his comparison was apt—we are always learning to be the people we are growing into and that involves a lot of stumbles. Not to be morbid, but I think we are learning to not only live, but how to die, by which I mean learning how to not make the fact that we die the key motivation in all our decisions. Death can only be the mildest flavour in a well-lived day, as subtle as the brush of vermouth on the walls of a martini glass. Just enough to make you embrace possibility.

Actually, now that I’m remembering this conversation, I think that younger man also said something like that as I tried to explain what being close to 40 felt like. I said, it was like you can see all this time that has passed and you’re like, well, that’s done and I won’t get it back and the next chunk of time will likely pass really fast, too.

“So, like you’re closer to death?” he asked. 

When I’m 50 or 60 or getting my Happy 130th birthday zap from our AI robot president through my neural pathway feeder, I will feel very ridiculous about feeling old at 40. Actually, in many ways I don’t feel old right now. I have a memory from childhood that I think of as “waking up,” a morning when I opened my eyes in bed under a green felt blanket in my parent’s house on 12th street and was suddenly myself, this soul with a persistent inner monologue of observation and reflection. I had memories from other days, I knew where I was and who I was, but I had not been There before. And the voice that greeted me as myself that day is the same one inside right now. Ageless, annoying, eternal.

The biggest mental difference at 40 for me is that I’m no longer waiting for life to start. Childhood, teens, twenties, those decades I spent expecting something to arrive and start the action and show me who I would be and what I would do. I was anticipating the hero’s journey without realizing it, and while things did happen, they mostly had little narrative trajectory. When I think about “time wasted,” I am usually thinking about how I lived in anticipation instead of action, even as I recognize that I was only capable of what I was capable of at the time. If there is anyone younger than me (or older) who knows what I am talking about, I encourage you to stop waiting immediately. Nothing is coming except the end, but there is plenty of stuff for you to go towards.

My other observation of aging makes me sound like a self-righteous old crank, too, and it is that we should all grow the fuck up.

My generation, the elder millennials joining me this year at the big four oh, is a very infantilized one. At times, this was against our will in accordance with world-altering circumstances that cut off development at the knees. I have, however, undeniably seen many of us respond by embracing babyhood, clinging to it, and demanding not only that we have all our nostalgic comforts, but that everyone around us validate and applaud us for it. And I’ve done it myself! There are so many things I took so long to learn, to investigate, to try, to leave behind, because it was too uncomfortable to do otherwise. And why shouldn’t I find some comfort in this harsh reality? 

I now find this tenderly guarded helplessness really boring even when I’m trapped in my own ridiculous cycle of watching the same TV shows or getting sucked into Girl Dinner discourse on Twitter. Because I’m not a girl anymore and that’s for the best. It’s an absolutely amazing thing to grow up, to mature, to have responsibilities and obligations, and so many histories. To sort through piles of clothes and get rid of the jeans you’ll never fit into again, to find an old baby shirt at the bottom of the pile, smile, fold it up, and tuck it away. It’s fantastic to stack your old deranged journals on the shelf, to appreciate the taste of olives as your sweet tooth fades away. I’m an adult who can do things and make decisions and be exhausted by having to do the dishes again. That’s nothing to hide from and the more I face it, the more space opens up around in front of me. Life is not as cramped when you’re not trying to freeze in place. There is so much grace and beauty and amusement in getting older and the art is doing it without calcifying at a spot in your timeline, refusing to take another step.

I’ve really appreciated this newsletter as a way to make myself oil the joints of experimentation. And for the unrecorded record, I did do 39 new things, I just didn’t get my ass to write about them in time for my birthday. Too much time spent having fun, I guess. But I will keep writing about them and do even more things, uncomfortable things, especially once spring is here and I can go hang-gliding. Feel free to keep reading or unsubscribe. Thanks for making it this far, and I hope you’re doing new things and I’d love to hear about them. Discovery is wonderful when shared.

Anyone reading this, and me, are just individuals with only so much influence and plenty of limitations. Collectively, we are stewards of the world. I feel a deep personal failure when I consider how I’ve not taken up that job and hopefulness when I plan ways to correct that in the next four decades. Action! Adulthood! Aging! Yes, I turned 40, and it’s a new thing that I really recommend doing if you get the opportunity.

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• What makes you feel like a grown up in a good way? What are you looking forward to as you age?

• P.S. I really am so sorry for falling behind. One of the new things I did was go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and it completely derailed my life. Worth it!