The road to 40 and what no one really says about growing older

I am laid up sick on a gorgeous Sunday, for the first time in months it’s not a million degrees outside, talk about unfair! But hey, my misfortune is your good fortune since at least today I am well enough to sit up and do some writing. I probably should be writing a grant or something, but a blog post is far more fun.

Anyway it’s been about a month since I wrote about my journey to be fit for 40. January will be here before I know it and I really want to start my 4th decade off with some good habits which means unlearning 3 decades worth of shit. Really what that means is I have to learn to like exercise and physical activity, now I am not a complete slacker, I do love me some sex and that burns off calories. However unless I want to have sex for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it seems I might need something a little more than sex to keep this body healthy. I have also learned this month that while yoga has worked wonders for my mental state, it might not be nearly as wonderful for my waistline. Unless one has a crazy high metabolism, there is a school of thought that yoga can slow down one’s metabolism. At first glance I laughed but as I just finished reading William Broad’s The Science of Yoga, I can say that my own experience is that yoga has indeed slowed down my metabolism. For the past several months as I have increased my weekly sessions to keep myself calm, I have had a rather strange weight gain, nothing big but enough to wonder what the hell is happening? Turns out that since I wasn’t doing anything other than yoga, my body slowed down so much that it decided “Hey, we can’t be bothered to lose any weight and oh those sweets and wine you were having a few nights a week, we decided to sit on your midsection because we are chill!”

I am ramping up my walking game and contemplating joining a gym, while I will admit to a certain level of desire to look good, in the end it’s really about feeling good and being healthy. No matter how much I tell myself a mini spare tire isn’t bad, I know it’s not true for me.

So I am working my plan for fit at 40 but what I really want to talk about is the shit no one tells you about aging. Can we get real for a moment? For years now there has been all this talk that 40 is the new 20 or the new 30 but the truth is 40 is 40. Now I know I am still 39 but using the logic that 40 is the new 20 or 30, that would mean 39 is like the new 19 or 29 and I am sorry but my body no longer resembles the one I had at either 19 or 29.

For starters I never had the hair issues I currently have when I was 19 or 29. Now before I share, let me just say I have talked with offline friends, online gals and women in between and there is consensus that ladies as we age, we get more hair. When you are a pretty young thing, sure there is the hair on your head, eyebrows, legs and underarms that you worry about if you are one to worry about such things. I must confess when it comes to leg hair; I only worry about that shit in warm weather months. Now of course we have pubic hair removal if that’s your thing, but ladies the hair that happens as we age is scary shit.

It seems for many of us that somewhere between our mid and late 30’s, we start seeing that stray chin hair. No worries, you pluck it and go on about your business. Oh no, that’s not good enough, that one singular stray hair somehow starts procreating and one day you are looking in the mirror on your way out the door and what do you see? A fucking family of chin hairs, and if that is not bad enough, they have started visiting your neck. Then to really fuck with you, that area above your lip now has enough hair present that if you do nothing, you will look like your brother. If you are really special, you get the side face hair. Let me tell you all of a sudden, you find yourself with enough hair that you cannot ignore that shit and suddenly you are BFF’s with the waxing lady. Now if you haven’t reached this stage in your aging process, pat yourself on the back, something is headed your way. If none of it happens to you, please tell us your secrets.  The cost of keeping yourself from looking like Sasquatch’s lady love if annualized is the price of a vacation. Granted you can be one of the bold and brave and let the hair live but I am going to be honest, I am not there yet.

Which brings me to hair on your head, when the first gray strands pops up it’s cool but when a family of gray pushes out your original in my case dark brown hair, you decide to color. Well when you color it’s a commitment. Sure I could do nothing, but gray at 39 is not where I am and oh those later gray hairs are evil bitches, hard to color and even with a fabulous colorist, the color jobs don’t last as they did in your 20’s. Grays are evil!

Lastly, why is it that no one tells you that in your late 30’s and early 40’s that all the hormones sloshing around in your body will at times make you feel as if you have reprised the role of yourself at 15. Complete with pimples and a tire around the middle because unless you’re are a fitness nut, or have a kick ass metabolism, weight generally likes the middle. To add insult to injury, you have are extra hairy, you have pimples and you are graying. Never mind you might have grown up shit like kids, a partner, bills and all that jazz.

So if this shit is so common, why are we all running around saying and believing that 40 is the new 20 or 30? No it isn’t! Better yet why don’t we share this shit with each other? Why aren’t the ladies in their 50’s and 60’s telling us younger women what the real deal is? I figure the real reason sex is better for most of us as we age and that we find our true selves is that it takes some amazing inner strength to navigate our teen selves in grown up bodies, so we get confidence and great sex as a prize.

5 thoughts on “The road to 40 and what no one really says about growing older”

  1. Funny post. I’ve definitely experienced a sudden and rapid increase in gray hairs. I had just a few, then about a dozen, and then out of nowhere this year I cannot find a single square inch of my hair that doesn’t have a gray hair on it. I colored it but that lasted about a week! Sigh.

    I’ve had the random chin and neck hairs – same four! – for the last year. I just pray they don’t start building a colony, but I have little hope my prayers will be answered.

    I wouldn’t mind being 26 or 27 again – or even 30. Physically I was in really good shape then. But I am working on getting to that point again, and don’t feel too negatively about the body I have now. It is what it is. I think as you age, you need to pay more attention to your body, it doesn’t “coast” like it used to. It doesn’t handle neglect all that well. Maybe the body expects that we would have birthed our babies at age 15 and by 40 be done with raising families and have time for ourselves again. Hahahah!

  2. I would love to go back to 30 – 31, that was a good age. The weight and hair issues ramped up after that. I shrank two whole inches of height! And a few other health scares. But 30 was awesome! 😉 Way better than my 20s. I’m older than you, I’m 43. The worst part for me is that you don’t bounce back from stuff like you used to: aches & pains of being sick or moving furniture or whathaveyou. That’s what my husband and I have noticed.

  3. I feel the same way, I hate the physical changes but even if were possible to be 29 again, I would pass on it. Granted I would love to have my old metabolism back.

  4. Solidarity! I’m weeks away from 40 and slowly progressing on the path of life/health changes. So far not bad. Either way I’d still take where I’m at now over any day of my 20s. I think we’re only getting younger and better…

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