Forty isn't the new anything

Fulfilled. Confident. Content. Happy.

All words I'm apparently supposed to be using to describe my awesomely fantastic forties. You know what? Bullshit. Despite what magazines, celebrity interviews, Oprah and likely an entire self-help section at Chapters (assumption; I avoid that aisle like I avoid tapered-leg jeans) are trying to make me believe, I don't feel any of those things these days. Hey, I'm (mostly) thrilled for you if you do, but for me, forty is not the new thirty; it's the middle-aged pain in my ass.

I know the rationale. By now, at mid-life, I'm supposed to have accepted my shortcomings, embraced my uniqueness, found my bliss and learned to love my cellulite. I hadn't got around to any of that at 39, so what was my odometer clicking over to 40 supposed to do? Was I suddenly supposed to wake up feeling rejuvenated and bouncier than I had in years because of this "brand new chapter"? Still waiting. I worry that maybe I missed some epiphany (maybe epiphanies are like the cable guy, and only come between 9:30-5? Fuck. I'm never home then). I don't feel fundamentally different than I did in my late 30s, but sometimes all the messages I'm getting make me feel like a slacker for not celebrating my 40s by dancing on beaches, taking a hot air balloon through wine country, or strolling through open air markets flirting with handsome chefs. That last one might actually be a Barilla pasta commercial, but you get the idea. And let me clear something up right now: never mind today, I could live to the ripe old age of 107, be cryogenically frozen, defrosted 50 years later, and the first thing I'm going to say when I can move my lips again is "I still fucking hate my cellulite".

What's supposed to make this decade so great, anyway? I had more disposable income in my 30s, and I very much enjoyed disposing of it. I had more interesting sex, though I suppose more is relative. So's interesting, for that matter. I could still get away with calling them "laugh lines". Is there something I'm supposed to be doing to achieve this supposed nirvana? And do flax seed or fish oil have anything to do with it? I'm starting to suspect that all these women who claim enlightened contentment (contented enlightenment?) are really just too exhausted, or just can't be bothered, or are even a bit ashamed, to admit the truth - that forty doesn't necessarily equal fulfillment; sometimes, it just equals being twice as old as that 20 year old pouting out at me from the magazine cover with the headline telling me to "embrace my age"! Embrace this, you smug bitch.