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Last week I learned that I had a near miss with catastrophe, and I didn’t even know it. I shudder to think how close I was to disaster.

My sister, who has apparently never met me, was planning the dreaded 40th birthday surprise party.

Thank God she abandoned her efforts before calamity could strike.

To say I don’t like surprises would be an understatement. If there is anything I like less than being surprised, it is being surprised while a roomful of people watches me. I hate to be the center of attention, or to have people looking at me. Turning 40 is alarming enough in and of itself — I don’t need to do it with an audience.

I know what you’re thinking: if I hate to be the center of attention, why do I put the details of my life out there on the interwebz for total strangers to read? That’s TOTALLY different. I would argue, in fact, that writing is the perfect hobby for an attention-phobe like me. I can put my carefully edited and polished thoughts out there for you to read while I hide safely behind my computer screen. But those of you who have suggested that I should turn some of this stuff into a stand-up comedy routine? Fugeddaboudit.

I vividly remember trying out for the drill team in high school. At that point I was unaware of just how uncoordinated and dorky I am, so I didn't realize what a bad idea this was. In practice I did fine. But when the time came to perform my little routine in front of judges, I froze. Totally forgot what I was doing and screwed it up worse than even I could have imagined. It’s a good thing I didn’t make the team — I guess I hadn’t figured out that if I did, an entire football stadium full of people would be looking at me every Friday night.

The year my oldest niece was born, I was Mary in our church's Christmas play. This was mostly because it made sense to have my four-week-old niece play the part of Baby Jesus, and my sister, who was our music director and would be otherwise occupied, wouldn’t let anyone else hold her for the duration of the show.

All I had to do was walk down the aisle with Joseph, sit down and hold the baby. No acting required. No lines to memorize. In fact, once the music started up again, no one would be looking at me anyway. How tough could it be?

I was a nervous wreck.

You should have seen the look on my face when my high school principal told me I was the class salutatorian and would be making a speech at graduation. I didn’t sleep for a week.

I think in some hidden room of my subconscious, my attention phobia is one of the reasons I’ve managed to avoid marriage, or at least a wedding. I can’t imagine anything worse than having to kiss someone in front of church full of people.

The weirdest thing about all this is that I’m not exactly a wallflower. In the company of friends and family, I’m outspoken to the point of obnoxious. I crack jokes. I have a hellacious cackle of a laugh. It’s not like I blend into the woodwork.

But put me on a stage, literal or figurative, and I can’t handle it.

My whole life, I looked forward to turning 40. I don’t know why, I just always did. Now I’m here and it doesn’t seem possible.

I was in the doctor’s office today getting some tests done and the woman asked for my age. I heard the word come of out my mouth, but it seemed like someone else said it: “Forty.”

Forty.

So succinct. So poignant. Not the flourish and energy of “Twenty-Two”, nor the slightly interesting, lived a bit age of “Thirty-Six”. No, this is 40. In highway speed, 40 is safe; not the express way 65 and not the school zone 15 – somewhere in the middle is 40.

I’ve got hair that I'm leaving uncolored, now turning slightly gray – not quite blonde, not quite silver. My eyes aren’t working as well as they used to, my hands keep dropping things for some bizarre reason and my weight is even more difficult to manage than it has been all my life.

And yet, I’m not sure what 40 means really. I’m not old. Far from it – in fact, I hope I’m one of those people who never really get old… I will age, but if I can just keep moving, I’ll never really get old. I don’t even know what 40 looks like anymore, not even on me. You reach a point in your life where you can’t really see yourself clearly, with honest eyes. Its one reason people hate to see themselves in photographs. They can't bear to see what the camera (and everyone else) sees.

I'm working on seeing what Mr. Crab Claw sees. I have a collection of photos over the past 12 months or so that he has taken of me. Mostly candid, cell phone shots – rarely do I pose for him. I want to work on a new piece, in my signature collage style that I love, with another self-portrait.

Really looking at yourself is strange, difficult to do and, maybe its just plain weird. But, I’m going to work on this and probably just call it 40. I can see the piece – it will most likely be part of the marriage project Crab Claw and I have been working on. Not really sure… I just know it is (and I am) a work in progress.

via Simply Me: 40?.

Jay-Z spoke to FemaleFirst about his great longevity in the music industry, turning 40 years old and staying grounded throughout.

On turning 40:

I feel fantastic about turning 40, I’m in a great place, got a fantastic album, my eleventh number one which beats Elvis, so I’m feeling like the king of pop.

On staying grounded:

When people get success, they often start getting rid of their immediate circle who knew them to surround themselves with yes men and women and they get lost.I have great friends around to keep me grounded, fame is a drug and your feet can get lifted off the ground but I try to stay centred and whenever I start getting big headed, they stop me.

My sisters act like I work for them, which is great but I pretty much keep myself in check.

He doesn’t let the success affect his normal life:

When you live your life in the spotlight people tend to think our success or who you are is not a real thing, I like people to know I am a real person. I just happen to have a talent for making music and a work ethic to match it.

I try to approach everyday life – no matter what happens, whether there are 100 photographers or not – as normal. I still go out to eat and eat outside at places, no problem. Sometimes I snap but for the most part I’m cool with it, as long as people don’t invade your personal space I understand it comes with the business, it’s not a big bother.

via Jay-Z Feeling ‘Fantastic’ About Turning 40 | HipHop-N-More.

Well, I did it. I turned 40 on Saturday night (what luck!).

People tend to ask things like “So, what’s it feel like being X?” no matter how old you are. Much to my own surprise, it really DID feel different looking into the mirror that morning and realizing that I was 40 years old! I had–like it or not–launched Me 2.0 and it felt great! Oddly and unexpectedly, I experienced a new-found optimism, almost an insouciant nonchalance of come-what-may. Things aren’t great: I’ll probably be out of work soon, I’ve spent all my savings making ends meet, and I’ve got a young family depending on me. These and other concerns have really been dragging me down for quite a while. Somehow turning 40 has empowered me stare all these things in the eye and smirk–if not totally burst out laughing! Really!

I was 18 at my mom’s 40th birthday party, and on that day I introduced her to the girlfriend who has been my wife for the last 17 years. Our oldest is only in 2nd grade, so it seems really odd to think about being the parent of a precocious college student at my age–I can finally begin to appreciate what I put my parents through! But more than that, I’ve come to realize how fast we burn through that unlikely accident which is our lives: it seems like just yesterday I was at mom’s party, and now I’m at my own…

For whatever reason, this past year I’ve become quite a student of family history and in so doing have developed a deep, personal and ineffable appreciation for that dash between the two dates of a person’s life. I’ve glimpsed the shadows of some forgotten ancestors by approximations of their dates alone, with others I’ve re-traced the paths of immigration, ship wrecks, joy, love, tragedy, war, child birth (and death), unprecedented success, and abject failure–all of which has contributed a verse to this powerful and on-going play. And without even a single one of whom I would never have been. And even as I was learning this, several of my kid’s baby teeth fell out and the adult teeth are well on their way. I too am contributing a verse…

I had put much thought into turn 40, taking it quite seriously. I had made the usual lists of things to do, etc. Oddly, I’ve trashed all that. Perhaps I had put too much thought into it. At present, the most important thing about turning 40 seems to be maintaining and fostering that precipitous sense of optimism which has befallen me. This, methinks, will become the rocket fuel propelling me through and beyond all of those other goals and aspirations I had dutifully, and perhaps mechanically, cataloged. This is my secret of 40.

Of course, Saturday night’s celebration may well be the root of all this. 40 falling on a Saturday, I had to celebrate big–over the top big. Had I not, I would have regretted it for the rest of my days. 40 has colored my 80. I threw a big party in a lodge overlooking an urban lake. I was simultaneously the caterer, the entertainment and the guest of honor! I smoked almost 70 pounds of brisket and pork (I have quite a reputation for this among my friends), and the guests brought all the fixin’s. I play in a rock and roll outfit (reliving my youth so that I can waste it this time!) and we delivered our best and most fun performance to date! Everyone was there: friends from junior high, high school, law school, former bosses and co-workers, old girlfriends, parents from kids’ soccer teams, even a long-lost favorite uncle. It was like the ending to the movie Big Fish–which, I think, is actually a funeral!

And in some ways, it was the simultaneous celebration of an ending and a beginning. The launch party for Me 2.0. The new version is out. Let the games begin!

I was an unwed mother of twin boys at 20 and spent the next 20 years focused on raising them. I married an alcoholic, worked in low paying dead end jobs, but I had tunnel vision, getting my boys to college. They were going to have all the opportunities I never had. They are in college now and at 40 so am I.

Some days I feel like I can take on the world yet other days, when the self doubt creeps in, I think who do I think I am. When Im sitting in class with 20 somethings and no one wants to converse with the”non-traditional student” I feel so insecure and out of place. Yet, learning is so incedibly exciting and my sons are very proud of me. Its a strange and exciting journey. I refuse to let self doubt and others opinions, regarding all the doors that will be closed to me because of my age, keep me from pursuing my dreams!!!
-We are not now that strength which in old days moved heaven and earth; that which we are we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

I woke up this morning pretty much like any other. The alarm sounds, we hit snooze for 10 minutes, cherishing every last second of cuddliness before the second alarm, and then the forcing of the feet to hit the floor, stumbling crusty eyed into the washroom. Face wash, pee, brush teeth and so the day begins.

Turning 40 is kind of like New Year’s Eve. It’s supposed to be a big deal of some sort, but when it finally comes and there are no miraculous, life changing events, you just feel disappointed.

I’m not sure what I expected to happen today. I knew there’d be lots of facebook Happy Birthday messages and some face to face wishes. I knew I’d be looking forward to sushi and some great company at supper tonight, but on a deeper level I have been conditioned to believe something – bad or good – would happen.

I’ve read a bunch of things about turning 40. They include predictions that your eyesight fails, memory falters, and that you become somehow more wise. For me, halfway through day one, I believe my eyesight is still 20/20, my memory has been crap for years so no change there, and I don’t seem to have acquired a new outlook or any profound wisdom.

I have been trolling the Internet for interesting things, quotes, epiphanies on turning 40. Here’s an example of what I found:

“The first forty years of life give us the text: the next thirty supply the commentary”

“Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.”

“Mental powers peak at 22 and start to deteriorate at 27” (Depressing!)

“Somebody told me the other day that “Life does Not begin at 40. Life begins when the last kid moves out and the dog dies.”

(Not sure how relevant this is, but I’ve got a year and a half till the last kid moves out and the last dog we had, found a new home years ago.)

I then found a site with a woman’s list of “The 40 things every self respecting woman must have by the time she turns 40.”

Thought I’d check out how I measure up: