Skip to main content

Getty Images/iStockphoto

When I'm asked how old I am, my kneejerk response is 28. I've done this for so long that I stumble when I try to answer the question honestly. Sometimes I'll come up with crafty variations, like declaring that this year I'll be turning 28 for the twelfth time. All this deception is to mask the fact that I am, in fact, five months away from turning 40.

And I'm not okay with it.

I don't care for the platitudes that come with age: "you're only as old as you feel," "40 is the new 30" or my personal favourite, "age is just a number." Yes, 40 is a number – a loaded one. It's been appropriated by conventional society (and my mother) to separate the haves from the have-nots.

If you haven't established a successful career, coupled off, made children and/or properly invested for the future, you've officially failed.

Maybe that's just me projecting my insecurities, but the notion is backed up by research. In his 2014 article "The Happiness Curve," Washington Post writer Robert J. Samuelson summarized the studies of Laura Carstensen, a psychology professor at Stanford University. The founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, Carstensen explained that as we approach our late 30s and early 40s, increased responsibilities result in a sense of lost control. We are overwhelmed by the feeling that there's so much to be done and so little time to do it in – and the clock is ticking.

Of course, I worry about my inevitable physical decline, too. People tell me all the time that I'm silly for lying about my age because I still look fairly young. It's true that under the right lighting and with my roots freshly done, I can pass for 28; such is the fortune of the petite and thick-skinned.

But looking young doesn't negate the reality of age.

A number of my friends are also turning 40 this year and some are taking a seriously regimented approach to halting the march of time. One has sworn off carbs and dark spirits.

He came to dinner one night with two bottles of Skinnygirl Margarita in tow and declared, "I'm going into 40 with eightpack abs." Another no longer consumes gluten or sugar (or fun), while others are revving up their efforts to get either promoted or pregnant. So far, denial is the only thing I've tried.

Our vanity is grounded in fact: After 30, we start to lose lean tissue and muscle cells as body fat starts to steadily rise.

Once we enter our 40s, our brains are at risk, too. A 2012 study published online by the British Medical Journal found that cognitive function (memory, reason and comprehension skills) begins to decline as we enter middle age – not, as researchers previously believed, closer to 60.

What's worse is that my hard-earned street cred is slipping through my knuckle-duster-adorned fingers. I used to be trendy and tech savvy – I had a PalmPilot in 1997! Now, with every visit to urbandictionary.com to search terms like "bae," I want to shake my fist in the air and tell 40 to go to hell. Sure, my partner's nine-year-old still turns to me for all queries related to X-Men. But there are only so many movies left in the franchise and only so much time before he deems superheroes over.

My aging ego suffered another proverbial blow in May when The Wrap reported that 37-year-old Maggie Gyllenhaal was turned down for a part because she was considered too old to convincingly play the love interest of a man nearly 20 years her senior. The actress says her ensuing emotions ran the gamut from anger to laughter, which – let's face it – is the best medicine when you're in an impossible situation.

Last month, in a skit on Inside Amy Schumer, the outspoken comedian perfectly skewered Hollywood's proclivity for sending women over 40 out to pasture. In "Last F*ckable Day," Schumer runs into Tina Fey, Patricia Arquette and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a forest, where they are celebrating Louis-Dreyfus's last day as a viable sexual entity, as deemed by Hollywood. The ladies toast their colleague before a ceremonial sendoff in a canoe.

Women's magazines have been writing headlines about being fabulous at 40 for as long as I can remember. It always seemed pandering to me, but apparently it isn't just rhetoric. The Mills Longitudinal Study out of the University of California Berkeley has been tracking 123 female graduates of Oakland's Mills College since the 1960s: Apparently women have experience a surge of confidence in their early 40s, fuelled by feelings of independence and power, as well as a stronger sense of self and a new level of productivity. Evidently, I should be a #boss and I should be acting pretty smug about it.

But unlike the women of Mills College, I didn't feel incompetent or weak in my 20s and 30s; I felt young and hopeful. I reveled in being carefree and I relished the unknowns: Would I be a successful writer? Would that guy ever call me back? Would I make rent this month? Where I stood at the bottom of the proverbial hill, the ambiguity that my ascent to the future held was thrilling. Now all I feel is deflated. I got the answers (yes, yes and yes), and they weren't as exciting as I thought they would be. I can only hope that the inevitable tumble of my face, body and mind down the other side will be a bit more rousing.

I'll admit that from where I stand right now, my life is pretty good. I haven't ticked off all the boxes that accompany 40, but I'm happy with the ones I have: relationship, career, home. In fact, I've even decided to stop telling people that I'm 28. This year, I'm turning 29.

Interact with The Globe