I hate to admit it…it’s like crossing a threshold, becoming a grown up when you never expected to grow up. It’s like having to admit that you don’t bend in all the ways you used to bend….isn’t it?

I’m turning 40 ten weeks from today.

There. I said it.

I can’t believe I’M turning 40!! I don’t feel 40. I don’t look 40. Is 40 really the new 30?

What happens next? I think I have arthritis…but only in my right index finger. Is that the beginning of the end? Will my knees go next? Hip replacement? Oh God…do your teeth start falling out about now????

I had a complete physical a few months back. My glucose level was perfect. My bad cholesterol was low and my good cholesterol was high. Are those going to change the first of the new year? Am I going to have to get one of those little medication holders so I can keep track of my many(non existant at the present) medications by days? You know the ones…seven little plastic compartments labeled with the days of the week. Hell, I can barely swallow a daily vitamin, much less remember to actually take the damn things every day. OH MY GOD….am I going to have to start drinking Metamucil to maintain regularity?!?!?! I think I have high blood pressure…

Breathe in…Breathe out….relax….take a deep breath….it will be alright. You can do this. Piece of cake. Will I have to cut out cake from my diet? It will be alright.

But will it? Will I find a man at my age? Will I have to start wearing layers to fend off the hot flashes? Is that an age spot on the back of my hand?!? It looks like a big freckle…can I fake it? Pretend I don’t see it? Or just lie and say it IS a big freckle?

My God! Is that a gray pubic hair?!?! Time to go Brazilian. Hide the evidence. Start wearing mascara every day to hide the two white eyelashes. Does this mean I’m going to get those long wiry eyebrow hairs that my mother makes me trim on her?

Dare I let my hair grow out and stop coloring it? I haven’t seen my natural hair color in about ten years….how much gray is really up there? Why do I still suffer from acne at 40???

And what about all the plans I had before I was 40? I’m not married. I haven’t had any children. I haven’t even gotten my master’s degree yet. I haven’t been to Italy or Ireland. I haven’t made a million dollars yet. I haven’t invented a cure for cancer yet. What the hell have I been doing for 40 years???

I don’t even know how to knit…how will I be able to grow old?? Will I grow old gracefully? Or will I grow old and gray, saggy and wrinkled?

Crap.

First, I think this in large part a product of the entertainment media. If you step away from the light of entertainment (including most professional sports) world, the ‘real life’ interactions between 20somethings and older people mostly favor the older people. The older people are usually the ones with more power, money, and stability through social bonds to family, colleagues, and social organizations. In other words, in day-to-day life, it’s the older people who usually have what the younger people want [even though they might not admit it - I mean stability, ugh, that sounds so boring!].

I am in tech, and rode the Internet wave as a fresh college grad in the mid 90s. The late 90s were so interesting with the dotcom era because for a while this dynamic was tantalizingly flipped around with recent college graduates (or dropouts) or otherwise generally not qualified people left and right founding the next great thing company. Of course, why the VCs went for this so often I’ve no idea, but they were acting like the entertainment industry, motivated more out of fear of being left behind than what was necessary to build stability.

Well, that didn’t last. It couldn’t – the leadership & life experience to create organizations with longevity was largely lacking. A few companies (and their founders) made it perhaps due to a combination of luck, some truly breakthrough tech, or sheer perseverance, but most failed. And people in blue-suit traditional companies either looked on with bemusement at what was going on, or wondered if they were missing out.

The entertainment industry is one place in our society where life experience doesn’t usually mean a whole lot, at least on the public side. What seems to matter most is cornering ‘the next big thing’ under your label, in your movie, on your team etc.

The 2nd part is I think young adults (loosely defined as late teens through mid twenties) are particularly influenced by pop culture – because at that age we are for the first time able to make our own choices yet so unsure of what choices to make. It take some time to sort this out and get on a path of any kind. Most of us will continue to reevaluate and adjust this throughout our lives, but we’ll do so with some perspective and hindsight as a foundation.

I guess, what I mean is – if one wants to see a society that values youth seemingly above all else, pop culture is a ready way to do that. But if one wants to see a society that values age and wisdom and life experience, that’s just as available. So, I’d ask why do you care about what the pop culture portrays

Peter Wells takes little comfort from Steve Biddulph’s book.

Turning 40 is like supporting the Manly Sea Eagles: you remember the good times, but they are becoming a distant memory. While 30-something, it is easy to be a child at heart. Change the odd nappy, cook a dinner, iron some shirts, no need to take anything too seriously.

Now I’m offended when people suggest I’m too old for soccer (just because I recently snapped my cruciate ligament in a freak incident. No one tells Andrew Johns he’s too old for football).

I’ve begun to notice men on TV are dumb, weak and emotionally impudent. Apart from my Master and Commander DVD, I’ve given up watching.

Suddenly, my days of making easy cash sipping alcohol or discussing hair products in market research focus groups are over. They don’t want over 39s. My role as a consumer is insignificant.

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Tried to stifle the urge to peruse eBay looking for small-ish 1970’s Ferrari/Maserati/Lamboghini coupe. Not red – too damn stereotypical. Wasn’t successful, but thankfully only bid insufficient amounts.

Realization that I could have fathered any of the women in my wife’s Victoria Secret catalogue, or any of the men in this weekend’s NBA Freshman All Star game.

This weekend’s SPAM has been ferocious. Three an hour – and all focused on my whatnot. At least the euphemisms are worth reading, “Willy, Potato Man, One-eyed Snake, Love Muscle, your Member, Erect-oid, Ejaculator, your Johnson, your Manhood, Schlong, Love Monkey, Spud Stud, etc. Do they know something about turning 40 that I don’t? Should I be getting concerned? Does some marketing guru keep a master list of those males who are turning 40 and then they let loose the torrents of anxiety-raising questions regarding one’s sexual competency. Is this SPAM a portion of the Instruction Manual for which I have been searching diligently?

Cumulative knowledge I have learned in the last 40 years:

- Only when I stop and think about it, do I realize that I am the luckiest person I know. In the heat of the battle, many aspects/moments of my life can look pretty uncomfortable/dire.

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