It is the transition from “The Old Age of Youth” to “The Youth of Old Age”
Keeping weight off becomes more difficult.
You are in a new competitive class for many sports like running and swimming and rowing. Being 40 in a 40–49 group is better than being 39 in a 30–39 group.
I turned 40 in 2001 and had one two year old and another one on the way. Now I have four and I am usually the oldest dad in the group.

C.
Come on in; the water is fine!
I’ll say Happy Birthday to you now, because my stupid ass will forget by the 14th, you cranky Taurus you.~

Just another day.

20 was okay, 30 was okay, 40 was okay, but 50 was a killer for me, since everyone reminded me that 50 was one half of 100.

That hurt.

40 kicked my ass, 50 was uneventful. lol
40 was a wake up call for me, I got a divorce, and reclaimed myself, grew tremendously, launched like the scud missle. Decade birthdays tend to be pivotal times for some.
I didn’t consider 40 to be a mid-life crisis, but it was a time of re-evaluation.
The decade of my 40’s has been the single most growth producing decade of my life. No regrets. :-)

Not sure if it’s coincidence, but I just turned 40 and I’m depressed as f*ck.

I didn’t even think about it. I was happily too busy. It is what you make it.

Turning 30 made me feel old. I don’t remember it being a big deal to turn 40. I was busy raising four kids and my age was the least of my worries. Hitting 50 didn’t bother me, either. I can’t wait to turn 60 so that I can retire!

Better than turning 60!

Horrible and embarrassing, but not how you’d think. I was home with my family in Wisconsin, but not for my birthday. It was my father’s funeral. Two days later was my 40th birthday. They tried to make a thing for my birthday, but it was pretty horrible and embarrassing. The build up to my birthday, before my dad died, was icky. I made no plans. No one made any plans for me. The whole thing was ignored by those around me, so I felt strange trying to make plans for it, tried to ignore it, and then the call came that dad was gone. The ‘party’ was at my sisters house, but noone really felt festive. I had once glass of champagne and drove us all home at the end of the night.

I loved turning 40. I was really happy about where n my life I was (relationship, job, where I lived). I felt like the uncertainties of my youth were past. I felt powerful and sexy.

I panicked when I reached 47, feeling life was as good as over. My career in psychology had burned out, my first marriage ended in my getting a divorce, two businesses failed and I was living on less than $5K a year. I am now 72, retired after over a decade as the assistant director of our city’s performing arts theater and will have been married for 19 years in June. My point is fear not. The future will be nothing like you might imagine. Do what you love as much as possible and enjoy life to the fullest. Oh, and happy birthday.

Bill1939….....good answer.

40 I kind of had a feeling there were things I didn’t do that I should have in my life, which was a little depressing. But, being 4 years into my 40’s I have to say that my perspective on life and my experience is in some ways very freeing. I really feel in my soul that as we age we gain wisdom, and there is much much more to learn. I also have a much better appreciation for nature and very in tune with what makes me happy. I enjoy life much more as I get older, even though I also have some crappy things going on.

@tom_g You’ll get over it. Then you’ll turn 44 like me and be 4 more times as depressed as when you were 40. Lol. No man, it’s just me. Michael Jackson’s dead. And if Madonna dies or Tom Hanks before me, I’ll just shoot myself!

I turn 40 in December and I’m actually kind of happy about it. I’ve always been a bit of an old soul so my age is finally catching up with me. I hated many parts of my 20s and early 30s and now I’m finally feeling ok to be me.

It made me think crap if I knew I was going to live this long I would’ve taken better care of myself. My inner child doesn’t age, so he takes care of most things for me.

It was a breeze, I hardly noticed it.

I was completely unfazed by 40. So far 28 kicked my ass harder then any other birthday thus far.

Happy b-day.

@Mama_Cakes – Thank you for this question. I’m turning 40 this summer..and I’m a bit ambivalent about it, too.

My mom trained for and ran a Triathlon on her 40th birthday. I have no such ambitions.
For the most part I am more freaked out at watching my kids get older than anything else. I laid in bed last night and realized in 3 more years we’d be seeing my oldest child off to college and that freaked me out.

I’ve been thinking about this myself since I’ve just turned 39 recently. I know that turning 30 wasn’t bad for me, and it is the default age that I would have chosen for myself to stay at, if I had that option that is. I think that I’ll just take turning 40 as another day. I don’t celebrate birthdays.

That’s not the one that caused me a big gulp. I felt it, but man, it seems young to me now. I wouldn’t want to be 17 again, but I wouldn’t mind 40 one bit.

Do something fun that day, maybe even something you’ve always wanted to do (whitewater rafting? glamour photo session? mud bath? sightseeing bus tour of your own city?) but that won’t break your body or make you feel old. There’s no need to party with three dozen people who all think “Over the Hill” cards and balloons are funny. There’s always another hill, darlin’.

Being a dude (And what a dude!) it was no big deal. My fiftieth was more of a thing simply because turning a half-century seemed a bit surreal. Still, just numbers. How I feel is far more important to me.

Turning 40 was nothing what surprised me was when I turned 50 and was still alive. The earlier part of my life involved a lot of risk. Combat, working on radar antennas during snow storms, mountain biking in really rough steep terrain, kayaking off of cliffs (not my idea).
So when I woke up on my 50th birthday I was really surprised and embarrassed. I had told my family and friends that I would never see 50.

Well I got over that and my lifestyle hasn’t changed appreciably except no more diving off of cliffs in a kayak. Now I doubt that I’ll ever see 80.

That was 27 years ago, I can’t remember!

But I am sure you will be fine, it is, after all, just one more 24 hour increment of your life.

I didn’t give it much thought at the time. I had a four year old son, we had just bought our first house. My parents were still alive and they came out from Colorado to attend our housewarming and our oldest son’s wedding. Sonny and his wife moved in with us. It was a wonderful year.

It’s was disappointingly non eventful. It could’ve been worse, sure- I could’ve felt depressed, old, closer to death, blah blah but it just wasn’t much of anything.

Plan yourself a long weekend, a party or something because each decade should be celebrated. Life is busy, complicated, overwhelming but also good.

For me it was pretty much a non-event. For the folks at the office it was a grand opportunity!

Happy birthday!
Forty is good. Enjoy it while it last. But don’t let yourself go because if you do then when you reach my age (61, not on any medications and jog several full marathons a year) you will be hurt’n for certain. It is especially important to live a healthy lifestyle as your body’s integrity is heading down hill. There is nothing that you can do to stop the aging process but you can significantly slow the degradation process through regular and vigorous exercise, eating right, getting adequate sleep and laying off the tobacco, alcohol and other recreational drugs. If you are willing to put in the effort, then you will have a chance of reaching the next few decades of your life fit, active, happy and healthy. Good luck to you and your journey through old age!

Take good care of your self and remember your age is little more than a number!

Freaking out has no benefits. Avoid it!

They say 40 is the new 30 and all that. Didn’t bother me at all.

You are in a fabulous stage of life! You should be feeling beautiful, strong, gorgeous, liberated, clever… super woman. You should be mature enough to not worry about what anyone else thinks or says about you. You know who you are! You are WOMAN!

Enjoy your birthday…

I started to feel like I was “turning” 40 when I was 37. It’s no coincidence that my father died a week before my 37th birthday. So for three years I felt as if 40 was looming. It was a rough three years.

Then, when 40 hit, I was hoping for some kind of revelation – or at least a sense of peace. And maybe, a little celebration.

But to my chagrin, I’m even more anxious and restless and frustrated than before. So no peace. And, to add insult to injury, everyone basically forgot my birthday. So no celebration either.

So turning 40 has taught me that while life is cyclical, nothing really ever gets better and that, ultimately, I don’t really matter.

Well, it didn’t turn out to be so bad.

I have realized that I need to exercise and be careful in what I eat now. I could hoover up food and stay the same weight. I also could hoover up food and never exercise and stay the same weight. Not anymore.

The cake was an Italian Wedding Cake make by my partner’s Uncle’s partner, haha. Delicious!