http://www.jennifernew.com

I have kids and spend a fair amount of time envisioning their birthdays, days which are as important to me because their births changed me, made me who I am. But this year as I turn forty, I’ve decided to pay special attention to my own birthday as well. I didn’t want to turn forty alone. I wanted this to be a celebration and a time for reflection. Most of all, I wanted to share the experience with other women at a similar point in their lives. I want a community. So I started a blog, 40candles.blogspot.com. All contributors need to be turning forty this year — born in 1966. Visitors to the site, however, are of all ages. It’s proving not only to be a good way to reconnect with old friends and make new ones, but is also a chance for me to spend a moment every week reflecting on who I am now.

Yesterday afternoon, I was flipping through the pages of the September issue of ELLE Magazine, the one with 19-year-old starlet Lindsay Lohan on the cover. I don’t know much about Lohan, having never seen any of her work; however, the article, in my opinion, wasn’t a very flattering one, painting her as inconsiderate, a consummate partygoer, an attention-hound and prone to general bad behaviour. Tsk, tsk, I thought to myself. She’s going to regret her actions when she’s older. She should know better. I certainly knew better.

Well, on second thought, maybe I didn’t. I mean, while I was never the party girl Lindsay Lohan appears to be, I suppose there are a few things I did when I was 19 (and even older) that didn’t show the best judgment on my part. The truth is, as independent filmmaker Harvey Weinstein said of Lohan in the article, “We were all 20 once, weren’t we?”

Indeed. For me, 19 was 20 years ago. Clearly any mistakes or poor decisions I made helped to shape the person I am today — so, you know, no regrets — however, wouldn’t it be nice if the 39-year-old us could write letters from the future to the 19-year-old us, to help dodge some of those unfortunate mistakes we made? If it were possible, I think my letter would go something like this: