Turning 40

Turning 40

I turn 40 today.

Round numbers are weird. We assign meaning to turning 40 in a way we don’t to turning 39 or 41. People ask you how you FEEL about turning 40 in a way no one asked me how I felt about, say, turning 37.

What I mostly feel is that I hate February. I don’t like being cold. I get depressed when it’s dark all the time. By February the holidays are long over, put away and done and spring is too far away to be realistically anticipated. I can’t shoot as much as I want; I’m tired of my house, by the time the kids get home from school it’s about to be dark anyway and, really, in the depths of winter I can barely motivate to cook and do laundry. February is to the year what 3AM is to the middle of the night; not a good time. The three feet of snow that feel overnight on Friday, effectively cancelling my surprise birthday party didn’t help the feeling of: February, it sucks.

What I mostly think about turning 40 comes from a probably trite feel-good article I read at a hair salon several years ago. In it one woman notes that a woman’s most creatively rich decade is usually her 40s. You are still young and healthy enough to most likely be free of major health impairments and are over the hump of the most demanding part of child rearing (because, let’s face it, mustering the energy to be creative isn’t easy when you have a baby waking you up every 2-3 hours). Plus, of course, you have enough life behind you to have a little depth. Healthy + experience at life + no babies = creative. That sounds pretty good. I’ll take it.

Wish I could have turned 40 in spring or summer though. I much prefer May to February. I mean, 3 feet of snow? Really?