On Turning 40

         A friend here at WDC created a forum to gather thoughts about turning 40.  I wrote her the following comment and entered it at her forum:

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         I also put it in my blog but decided to set it up as a static item after being asked to make it more public so everyone could easily find it.  Ok, ok, you've talked me into it.  You know who you are! 

         On Turning 40…

         When I was a kid, my friends were anxious to be 16.  “Things will be so great when we’re 16,” they’d say.  “We’ll be able to go places and do things our parents think we’re too young to do now.”

         When we turned 16, everything stayed the same.  Our parents still thought we were too young for a lot of things we wanted to do.  It didn’t turn out to be the big turning point they thought it would be.

         When I was a teenager, my friends couldn’t wait to be 21.  “When we’re 21, we’ll be adults and no one will be able to tell us what to do anymore.”

         Well, when I was 18 ½, I married my sweetheart.  A year and a half later we welcomed our first child, a daughter.  A little over 4 years later, we were blessed with a second daughter, and three years and a very difficult pregnancy later, a son.  (To read about this experience, please visit:

ID: 1396421   (Rated: 13+) He's A Miracle to Me  A very emotional account of a difficult pregnancy and birth. by justme

         I gained a lot of weight after my third child was born because of the toll that pregnancy took on my body, my energy level, and my activities, but I never attributed any of these things to age.

         When I turned 35 I was still being carded at the grocery store or when I ordered a drink at a restaurant.  We had decided to home school our children, so being with my children was my life.  I tried to do things they would enjoy, stayed as active as I could, and just tried to keep up with them.

         As the children grew up, I never thought about my age.  Mentally, I felt the same as I had when I was 25.  My husband’s hair began to gray, but mine, although it had changed with each pregnancy, had gone from blonde to strawberry blonde. 

         A couple years ago my daughters and I joined the gym and everyone thought we were sisters, not mother and daughters.  When my daughter turned 21, we went to the grocery store together.  She checked out and got her items, I checked out and got mine; I got carded but she didn’t!  She was so mad!

         Today, I still feel about like I did when I was 25.  In the last year I’ve lost about 100 lbs through diet (Weight Watchers) and exercise.  I've gone from a size 30/32 to a 14/16 and I feel great!  My energy level has sky-rocketed.  I try to get to the gym at least five times each week.  I love going to water aerobics classes, using the elliptical machines, and working with the weights.  Core stability training has increased my balance as well as strengthened my back, and I’ve seen a lot of improvement in strength, endurance, and muscle tone.

         The other day my 18 year old daughter and I went to the grand opening of a new cosmetics store in our area.  Fallon got a make over and the lady who did it took extra time to show her tricks and tips for putting on make up.  She said that since she was so young and just getting into make up, she wanted her to know how to do it the right way from the beginning.  She thought my daughter was 12.  “You don’t look old enough to have a child much older than that!” she exclaimed.  Imagine her surprise to learn I had a daughter who just turned 22 a couple weeks ago!

         This December I will be 42.  My children are 22, 18, and 15.  I’ve been married for 23 years.

         Age still doesn’t matter that much to me.  Sure, sometimes I look back and wonder where all the years went, but they say ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ so I guess I was having fun. 

         To me, age isn’t so much a marker of how much time has passed as how much I have accomplished.  I don’t look back and think about the years and how old I am or how much time I might have left.  I look back and think about all the good times I’ve had with my family, the great things we’ve done together, and I’m determined those times will only get better from here.

         Here’s to another 40!

         If you'd like to make a comment about how turning 40 effected you or what you think about it if you're not there yet, please visit the forum:

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