So this is 40
My dad’s 40th birthday is emblazoned into my brain: the black decorations, the cake napkins that read “over the hill,” the tombstone cake topper, the constant jokes that he was officially old.
To an 8-year-old Amelia, I interpreted all of this as “life is over at 40.”
I turn 40 today so….well, I’m fucked I guess.
It’s an odd disconnect: my brain doesn’t feel a day over 30, some days my body feels 80, and my emotional health runs the gamut between those two. I never would have pictured me, at 40, still wearing sleeveless hoodies and avoiding wearing pants. Me, at 40, still running stupid long distances and playing in the mud. Me, at 40, NOT a partner at a law firm with a husband and 2.5 kids. Me, at 40, still recovering from an eating disorder.
8-year-old Amelia had 40 ALL wrong.
That’s not to say that I’m not a bit terrified of hitting this milestone, but that has more to do with life circumstances than the actual age. I didn’t picture my 40th birthday to be one where I was on crutches recovering from (another) stress fracture. I didn’t expect to be newly reeling from heartbreak1 and turning 40. I didn’t plan on the dual weights of a broken femur and a broken heart to close out my 30s.
Then I remember that I also didn’t expect to start 30 as a freshly crowned Spartan Race World Champion. I didn’t expect that would set me off on a fascinating ride for the next few years involving magazine covers, Oberto Beef Jerky commercials, photoshoots with JJ Watt, and a whole lotta barbed wire wounds and Tegaderm.
I couldn’t have predicted that the 30s would also lead me back down into the relapse hell of an eating disorder. I couldn’t have foreseen the 8 (or 9?) stress fractures that would plague me. I didn’t know that the eating disorder would leave me so numb and caught up in my own head I’d shut out everyone around me. I didn’t expect I wouldn’t have children during that decade (or freeze my eggs!), or that I would finally work so hard on showing up in relationships and opening myself up to love only to face repeated heartbreak.
I didn’t think I’d move from Chicago to the Bay Area to Colorado. That I’d change my mind on my “dream” of being a law firm partner, that I’d end up in…tech (says the girl who can’t program a TV). That I’d end up having sometimes between 4-6 foster dogs at my house at one time. That I would voluntarily check myself back into treatment in order to finally heal from what I had been running from all my life.
This is all to remind myself that, as terrifying as it is to have a blank canvas right now, I can’t predict what is going to happen over the next decade any more than I could predict where my last one took me.
It’s easy for me to fall into an existential spiral right now where I believe my best athletic days are behind me, that I’m washed-up and irrelevant in the sport, that I will be alone for the rest of my life because I’m too much and no one can stay with me. I might have spent several nights on the bathroom floor sobbing about those lately (note: I’m aware writing that sounds kinda pathetic, but what is life if we DON’T have those moments of total self-doubt now and again? Or maybe it’s just me?)
The truth of the matter is I just don’t know what is going to happen in the years to come. As much as I have tried to control all aspects of my life (to a fault), life just laughs in your face when it doles out the highs and lows. It doesn’t let you decide when you pull a grief card and when you will be intoxicated with joy.
But what I do know is that, at 40, I FINALLY feel like I am embracing who I am. I finally feel like I am appreciating myself and how I move through the world. I finally know that while I am always on a mission of being a better person, I’m not going to fundamentally change or morph myself for the approval or the love of others (ok, this is still aspirational, but I’m inching closer!).
If the 30s were a journey of finding myself, I hope the 40s are a journey of celebrating that self.
And I know it’s not that simple - there will be the highs and lows and in-betweens and all of the above. I will spend countless hours running in beautiful places filled with awe, and countless hours hugging my bathroom floor bawling my eyes out. I’m in a season of grief right now, but I know that joy will come back around. And then grief. And so on, unless our last breaths.
I won’t give up on my competitive running dreams, carried by the unyielding belief I haven’t tapped into my true potential yet. I won’t give up on opening myself despite how much it can hurt, because I know it’s worth it to be held in the safe arms of love.
I will live the best way I know how to live: saying yes, taking on big challenges, saying yes to adventure, loving with every fiber of my being. And I know living like that sets me up for massive failure, for crippling heartbreak.
Yet I will choose it over and over again. Because to me, that’s really living.
So whaddya say, 40s?! Show me what you got - I’m ready for it.
I touch on this with great hesitancy and sensitivity as it’s a tough area to navigate. Please know there is nothing but love, respect and sadness (written with consent):
Happy 40th! It took me until age 50, to just be happy with who I am and not try to please everybody else. So in my book, you are ahead of the game. I also didn't even start doing endurance activities until age 50 (too busy with work and kids prior to that), so you never know what the next decade will bring.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts here. I really appreciate your vulnerability and can relate to a lot of what you are writing. Even what you wrote recently on Strava about sharing your rehab workouts - that means so much to me as someone going through an injury during what was meant to be a very exciting first marathon build and seeing everyone else's huge workouts.
I'm a therapist and if there's one thing I have learned from my clients, as well as in my own therapy, it's that none of us actually have it all figured out, but we can't thrive when we hide ourselves away. It's a lesson I'm constantly teaching myself when all I want to do is snuggle up with what's familiar and wallow in my sadness. I admire your bravery and willingness to continue being curious about what's next, and willingness to continue learning about how to best nurture your relationship with all the versions of yourself - from 8 years old to 40 and beyond. Happy birthday, there is so much yet to come!