So this is 40: Ramblings on my 40th Birthday

Today, I turned forty. Wow. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been conducting an internal investigation to understand why this feels so significant. Maybe it’s the cultural weight of entering a new decade. Maybe it’s because December always has a way of stirring things up for me. Or perhaps it’s because, if I’m being honest, the last decade of my life bears almost no resemblance to the decade I thought I’d have.

I’ve been writing down notes, little reflections, gentle reckonings, honest observations as I grapple with this milestone, but as I sit here, writing this with my everyday morning coffee in hand, everything feels a little louder. A little closer to the surface. A little more… real.

And it’s hitting me that turning 40 isn’t just about looking ahead.
It’s also about looking back at all the ways time has unfolded, unraveled, and reshaped me.

Forty Years Doesn’t Feel Like Forty Years

Here’s the strange thing: when I say “I’m forty,” it sounds like such a big, long stretch of time. Four decades; decades that, when stripped down into increments in time, seem so far away. 

But in my mind and body, it doesn’t feel like that long.

It doesn’t feel like that long ago I was riding bikes on Idalla road, buzzing down the streets with the newfound independence of a 10-year-old living her best life. Taking walks to Dagwoods with the five dollars I got from my highly successful lemonade stand. Meeting with my “Kids Connection” girls for our weekly meetings, exploring “Fiji,” or practicing our cheerleading and dance routines.

It doesn’t feel like that long ago I shed the braces, unibrow, and the ill-advised perm I sported in middle school, and walked into “the other wing” in high school with more confidence, ready to take on all that high school promised. All the feelings and all the moments, they seem so long ago and, just like yesterday. So many “firsts” happened over those next four years; my first job (still arguably one of best jobs ever– shout out to all my Darby’s girls and guys), my first car, my first time bending the rules (sorry dad), my first all-nighter finishing a term paper, my first real date, my first love, my first heartbreak.  My first introduction to believing something will be forever and, then, things change. People change. Life, well, lifed on me. 

It doesn’t feel like that long ago I took that hard-earned money from working two jobs in between high school and college to buy a wardrobe full of black and red dresses to wear to Georgia Football games. I vividly remember Spring Break ‘04 at Nonna’s house in Sarasota…and the aftermath of getting e-coli on the ride back to campus. I remember the overnights to South Carolina and Clemson, the weekend stays at the houses of some of my girlfriends who lived close by, Pokey Stix from Gumby’s (IYKYK), and the intensity of our finals study sessions. 

And, I remember the feeling of walking into a new college, after dealing with some heavy things, worried about starting all over again, only to be met by some of the best people and friends I could have asked for. Those later college years, filled with highlights, some questionable decisions, and the first real crack at adulthood, set the stage for so much of that next chapter of my life. 

It doesn’t feel like that long ago, I decided to move to Baltimore, uncertain about what life would be like but sure that it was pulling me somewhere different. Part of my brain still feels like that 25-year-old, walking down Hanover St. on a rare Sunday Funday to watch the O’s play, heavily flirting with this tall, handsome, albeit a little quirky, guy named Matt, who we (ok, Shane) persuaded to join us while he was walking his dog. That walk I remember so well would be on repeat for the next near decades of my life. I remember standing in the kitchen at Tindeco Wharf before my first annual Sgambato Fourth of July party, yes, that one where the infamous shorts exchange took place, telling my best friend that this guy was different. I knew it in my bones. And so began my first greatest chapter. 

Those late 20’s/early 30s years built so much of who I am today. As crazy as it sounds, I remember the very moments I met so many of my best friends who are now the “aunts and uncles” to my babies today. The laughs we’ve had together, the tears. The Caledonia Wine Mixers, punctuated by inevitably losing and finding Monty Burns. The “Christina walks.” Watching Charlie the dog play in the snow and then fake an injury so he didn’t have to walk outside in the cold. The deep conversations had overlooking the Baltimore skyline after one too many glasses of wine. Our Gatsby wedding. Portugal. Gosh– how was all of this a decade or more ago? 

And Then, The Early 30s Lifequake.

Part of my brain is still thirty-two, holding my newborn son while the world quietly started crumbling under my feet. My brain so vividly remembers bargaining with God/the Universe, whatever power would listen, to make sure everything would be ok.  

It feels like parts of me are still thirty-three, learning how to survive a reality I never imagined. A solo mom with the baggage of young widowhood. Grieving. Living. Three moves in four years, just trying to figure out where we belonged. While 32-36 marked one of the hardest eras of my life, I will always remember the bond Bryson and I created together. Our long walks. Our travels. Five AM wakeups immediately followed by a Sesame Street marathon while I drank my coffee. Six AM walks with Charlie before heading to daycare. Nights when I’d lie in bed wondering how I’d keep doing it all, but knowing full well that I would. Because I had to. 

A Mid-Thirties Revival

I still remember how it felt after that first work happy hour. When I felt something inside me that I hadn’t felt in so long, an excitement, a giddiness, about someone on this side of the earth. I remember the eight-hour conversation had solely through text messages. I remember completely veering from my normal character and asking Paul out on a date (or heavily hinting that we should make that happen). And so began my next greatest chapter. 

Time doesn’t move in straight lines. It loops. It folds. It calls back old versions of us while inviting us into new ones.

And Here We Are: At 40.

Forty years sounds long when I look at it on paper.
But when I hold it in my hands?
It feels like a collection of vivid moments stacked close together, like a deck of cards I can shuffle through without trying.

Maybe that’s why turning forty feels so big. It’s not the number; it’s the perspective. It’s the way time starts revealing itself not as endless and abstract, but as deeply finite. Measurable. Tangible.

And that kind of awareness is, well, grounding.

If you had asked me at 29 what my 30s would look like, I would have drawn a very simple picture. A growing family. A beautiful, uncomplicated marriage. A certain kind of stability. A life that followed the natural order of things.

Instead, my 30s became the decade that cracked my life open.

Motherhood and widowhood arrived within the same year.
Love and loss became entwined in ways I could never have prepared for.
I spent years rebuilding not just my life, but my identity;  slowly, carefully, and with the grit I never asked to have.

My 30s taught me to live inside uncertainty; that I could and would survive the unimaginable. They taught me that life doesn’t follow timelines. And they taught me that expectations, even the innocent ones, can break your heart.

The Fear of Visioning Forward

Most people talk about turning 40 with some grand vision for the next chapter;  the goals they want to hit, the dreams they’re ready to chase, the ways they want to “step into” the next decade.

But I’m hesitant.

Not because I don’t want beautiful things. I do.
Not because I lack ambition. I don’t.
But because I’ve lived through what it feels like to imagine a future and then have life reroute everything overnight.

Assigning meaning to what the next ten years “should” look like feels risky.
The desire to dream again brushes up against the memory of how brutally plans can fall apart.
The hope for what’s ahead is bumping against the instinct to protect myself from disappointment.

I don’t expect tragedy, but my nervous system remembers.
My body remembers. And a part of me feels safer letting life unfold than trying to script it.

Balancing Both Fear and Excitement

Here’s the truth: I feel both excitement and fear about 40.

The excitement comes from how grounded I feel. How much more aligned I am with myself. How much more honest I am about what I want and what I’m no longer willing to tolerate. There’s a sense of expansion happening. A readiness.

But the fear?
The fear comes from understanding time in a way I didn’t at 20 or 30.

It comes from knowing how much can change.
How fast.
How permanently.

It comes from having lived a life I didn’t expect and learning that life refuses to follow our plans. Even though my 30s weren’t what I had pictured, I’m proud of who I became inside them. And so grateful for what I do have coming out of them. A beautiful family, people who love me on all sides of the universe; a belief in myself that didn’t exist before. I can do hard things.

If I can trust myself to navigate the unthinkable, surely I can trust myself to navigate whatever comes next. And, I believe, so much greatness, so many best moments, are still yet to unfold.

Maybe that’s what forty really is: a returning. Returning to the truth of who you are without all the noise; an untethered belief in yourself; and a trust in the universe that more greatest moments are still yet to unfold.