Turning 40.

The celebration and the grief.

Four weeks left until the big 4 - 0. Knowing how much birthdays mean to me, naturally my friends have started asking months ago: “How do you feel about turning 40?” and: “What are you doing to celebrate?”

So even if I wanted to not think about it, I can’t escape it because everyone and everything around me tells me to mark this ‘special’ moment and is obsessing over this milestone. I get it and I am absolutely behind celebrating every single birthday, whatever that celebration looks like:

In the last few years I didn’t have very much to celebrate and announce. No achievements, no milestones, no exciting moments, no good personal news to share - the only thing I was able to celebrate is the fact that I am still here. That I exist. Which is why birthdays mean so much more than congratulations on any project or visible milestone. A birthday isn’t something you earn.

The problem with my feelings around 40 isn’t 40, it’s what’s associated with it. The world tells me two things: that I should mark this birthday with champagne, bold declarations, a bucket list, a plane ticket and self-congratulatory words. It tells me that 40 is great, that it’s the new 30 (?) and no big deal at all! And it also tells me to fix, lift, lose, smooth and freeze things: my skin, my jowls, my weight, my brows, my neck, my eggs. So is midlife a cause for celebration or is it a threat, a problem to solve with collagen and Gua sha?

At the moment, I just tune out of it. Because this is how I feel about turning 40:

Sad.

Not because 40 is inherently scary. But because time is moving so quickly, and it’s getting harder to pretend otherwise. Like watching a movie and realising the higher the minute count, the closer you are to the end than the beginning. And yes, that hits me in a quiet, honest way. I feel sad for the things that haven’t happened (yet). For the things I thought I’d experienced by now. For the dreams that didn’t quite take shape the way they did in my mind. For the people I thought would still be here. I feel sad for the younger me who had plans and no idea what was coming.

And I also feel this: There’s something about the number 40 that feels really exciting. Like the beginning of something. I feel like I’m standing behind a curtain, moments before it opens, and the second or maybe third act is about to begin. I didn’t think I’d make it this far. There were so many years when I couldn’t see a future at all. 40 feels like a gift and a plot twist.

I feel happy for the younger me. Before starting a business or getting married to the wrong guy, before all the detours, the huge successes and the scary failures, she just wanted to be free. She wanted to live art, breathe art, create art and for her life to be art.
Even though it looks different from what younger me envisioned, that’s exactly what she is doing now. I feel happy that I can tell her: You’re doing it. It’s not perfect, but you are doing what you wanted to do. I am grateful to her for choosing what she did. I am proud of her courage.

My 20s were about hustle. Making money. Constant movement. I was going fast, chasing hard, trying to build something that looked like success.

When I burned my first life down in 2019 I told myself: This next decade will be about community.

And oh, it was/is! My 30s were a completely different beast. They definitely weren’t about making money or being a visible success. The last decade was about death and rebirth. It was dark. Muddy. Confusing. Painful. And I went through all of it holding hands with other people. My 30s taught me community in a way I did not expect. Not a soft or obvious way, but in a deeply, uncomfortable way. I wasn’t the saviour. I needed saving. In my 20s I was the one people leaned on. I was the one being able to help with the swipe of a credit card. The one with the big open house, the one with the means to help.
In my 30s I learned to need people. I learned what it meant to truly belong, not just fit in.

And now here comes 40. Obviously life doesn’t care about timelines or clean decade breaks, but it’s undeniably a marker in the sand. I’m curious. What will this next stretch hold. What will soften. What will sharpen. Who will I become next, and what will I finally lay down.

I’ve already seen more of my edges come through - because I trust myself more now than even a year ago. When someone reacts to me, my first misguided instinct was always to question what is wrong with me.
Self-awareness is a gorgeous thing friend. But it’s not the same as mistrusting yourself. I make people uncomfortable because I speak honestly. Because I have hard red lines and high standards. Is it the aquarian rebellious spirit in me with its ideals? Maybe. But I am done apologising for expecting integrity. For being challenging. For wanting more.
If you feel uncomfortable around me now, I have news: it will just get worse. I’m getting more confident in my needs, my truths, my desires, my intuition and my self-understanding. I’m shedding that self-doubt that made me believe others over myself. Even with people I love deeply, even with those closest to me. I’m on the verge of finally dropping that need to question myself constantly. I can feel it.

This is possibly the biggest difference between who I was then and who I am now: trust. I owe some of this to the fire in me.
And some of it to the people who have encouraged the truth in me. That it is ok to be like this. That I am not wrong for it.

Depending on who I talk to, they either call me ‘a baby’ (my 89 year old grandmother) or ‘an elder’ (27 year old Substack readers). Which, honestly, is kind of perfect. Because I feel like both: new and ancient. Soft and seasoned.
I’m midlife, I suppose. Whatever that means, because none of us know where the middle of our life is.
I don’t know how long my life is, but I know I’m somewhere in the figurative middle. And I’ve learned years ago already, that the middle is a strange place. Beautiful. But strange. Unfortunately, the middle is where life takes place. :) Not on the mountain tops. But on the journey through all the winding landscapes.

This is how I feel about turning 40:
I feel grief and celebration at the same time. I don’t exactly have life figured out or even myself, but I am at home in that knowing. I stand with everything I know and everything I still don’t understand, like I am holding pens in my hand. A pen of uncertainty, a pen of knowledge, a pen of curiosity. I have a feeling that with them, I can create something pretty great.