I’m OK. Totally OK.
I am totally OK with turning 40 in two-and-a-half weeks. That’s what I’ve been telling myself for months and months, for years in fact.
It’s only a number.
I am as old as I feel, as old as I choose to believe, or choose to act. (The answers to two of those three are well south of forty, the third depends).
With this positivity in mind I decided to turn 40 with a bang, to look that brand new zero right in the eye, square up to it and tell it I’m ready. I’m not afraid of a new decade.
I booked a venue for a party back in February, I sent out save the date texts and facebook invitations. I was ready. It would be fabulous.
I got emotional when old friends said that they wouldn’t miss it for the world. I got a different kind of emotional when a Bruce Springsteen concert caused Wexford GAA fixtures to be changed, resulting in my celebration clashing with the opening matches for the purple and gold in both hurling and football.
I’ve got the rig-out, the shoes are ordered, the hair appointment made.
But now, a couple of weeks out, as the clock ticks, I’ve gotten nerves. Maybe it’s because I’ve yet to order a cake for the party. Or finalise the music playlist. *Whispers* Or maybe it’s because I’m a teeny bit in denial.
F.O.R.T.Y.
F.*.*.*!
What does turning forty mean? It’s just a number, remember?
Here’s the thing: I always thought that by forty I’d have a bit of sense, I’d be responsible, I’d be impeccably groomed and totally in control. And, well, I don’t think I’m quite there yet.
Looking around me at the forty-year-olds that I know should have made me realise that there is no magic wand to turn me into that forty year old.
I’m this one.
My twenty-one-year-old self, just finished college, if casting an eye to the future when asked where she’d be at forty would probably have made a scarily accurate guess “Married, three or four kids, working as a solicitor, living in Wexford or Dublin, having travelled a bit”.
I’d like to pretend that I’ve been working towards those goals ever since but in truth it was all a happy, if predictable coincidence.
Forty.
I’m fine with being forty. I just need to adjust my expectations of forty-year-old’s accordingly.
It’ll be grand.
But just in case, pass the gin.
