Thanks for visiting Turning 40! If you're new here, please take a moment to share your experience of Turning 40 and subscribe to my RSS feed. Have a great day!

I turn 40 this Saturday, June 19th. I am not looking forward to this.

I am already dissatisfied with the way I look. Boobs have started their downward spiral, body could stand to lose about 50 lbs., teeth could use a professional whitening treatment or veneers, deep wrinkle in the forhead could use some Botox…the list seems endless. Even more so, I feel like I haven’t accomplished many of the things that I’ve wanted to do for ME.

I feel like I’m complaining, but I’m not. I have a wonderful husband, 3 beautiful daughters, a home…but I have definitely slacked off in what I want for myself. I have never been a good self-motivater or good at tooting my own horn, so I’m not sure exactly where to start. Or maybe I do know where to start but feel overwhelmed. Anyways, good luck and be strong to all the women out there…we all go through it one way or another.

I will be 40 in six months and I am having a real problem with it. I feel like my life is over. I have always been a dreamer (thinking about things I can do in the future), now as soon as I start to think about doing something in the future, I think why bother. I won’t have time to do it before I am too old or dead.

Any advice on how to deal with this?

Who would think of all people…me would be turning 40 without children. Not only was I raised to be a mother; I love children and that was my dream in life. A little background….The summer before I entered the 5th grade my parents became foster parents for infants. As a result I became a foster sister helping to raise over 300 babies from near birth to adoptions (usually between 3 and 6 months old).

I have been to fertility doctors and there is nothing wrong with me…I just can’t get or stay pregnant. Plus, I am a lesbian so I don’t get pregnant naturally and must go through a procedure to try. I am turning 40 on all days this year…..Mother’s day!!!! So, not only is it the worst day of the year…but it is my friggn birthday….

Everyone one wants to make a big deal out of me turning the Big 40….I could care less…..I would rather the day go by unnoticed….and when I say I want to skip it …. I am being selfish for not allowing people to celebrate my life and their love for me. How can I celebrate my life and be happy with my ultimate dream of being a mother will have basically ended on 5-9-2010.

This time of year is big on birthdays in our family. Both my sisters and my father had birthdays recently. And even my husband’s family treats this month as ‘Let’s be born and Party’ time. In fact, he’s in Istanbul right now having a joint celebration with his mum. He’s just turned 40 and she 70. 40. I know.

It’s not that I’m worried about getting older. I’ve come to realise over the years that this tends to happen on a day to day basis rather than on big birthdays. No, I’m fine with that. It’s more to do with the realisation that, come forty, you’re meant to be a certain way. Respectable, maybe. Adult, definitely. Better dressed. So with a few months to go, I’d like to review the list of ‘Things I’m meant to have got right before turning 40′ and see how I score. Why don’t you see how you score too if you’re not 40 yet? And if you are 40, feel free to add things to my list!

Things I’m supposed to get right before turning 40

This morning, we celebrated a friend’s birthday with a brunch at my house. It was a simple meal, organic vanilla yogurt, fresh fruit salad, and Rhodes cinnamon rolls hot out of the the oven, with a birthday candle stuck in them.

Since she was turning 40, a group of her friends came up with 40 charms for me to make into a bracelet for her. We’ve done this for a couple of other pals in our circle on their 40th too.

I’ll be forty next year. Some things are as I imagined they’d be, others are completely different. I’m not feeling the excitement I felt at turning thirty, but I am more curious. I don’t expect anything to magically happen on my fortieth birthday or in my fortieth year, but I do think I’ll be paying much closer attention.

I turn 40 at the end of the year and am stressed about it. I started a list of “40 things I want to do before i turn 40″ It has helped me to realize that there is not much I want to do…

I have done almost everything I wanted to. I only have 30 things on my list and am adding to it as I think of things.