The Big Four-Oh, the New and Improved Thirty

This weekend is birthday weekend around our household. MBH and I celebrate our birthdays within ten days of each other. MBH turned 44 last week, unfortunately it wasn't the usually joyous occasion as he was home in Tennessee to attend his father's funeral. This weekend, I cross another decade milestone and turn 40. So, we are going to have a joint birthday weekend that includes a trek to downtown Boston's mammoth Borders store and treat ourselves to a book we each really want (Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets book is mine!), dimsum in Chinatown or twin lobsters at The Green Dragon (we haven't decided yet, maybe we'll do both!), and then a leisurely stroll around a few of our favourite neighborhoods with a stop at Deluca's Market on Charles St. to pick up some wonderful cheeses to go with the rather indulgent and very expensive bottle of Bordeaux I bought to celebrate. Later, there may even be some type of decedent dessert involved. Who knows and that is part of the fun.

Last year, when I turned 39, I decided I wasn't going to be one of those people who struggle with the turn to 40. After all, according to all that we read, see, and are marketed, forty is the new thirty. Maybe and maybe not.

When I turned thirty my knees, ankles, and back didn't hurt in the morning when I first climbed out of bed and again when I get back in at night. When I turned thirty, I wasn't worried about my cholestrol, blood sugar, or for that matter that the bavarian creme filled puff pastry dessert I was making would put four extra unwanted pounds directly on my hips that would take six months to come off. When I turned thirty I didn't hate every article of clothing I owned and if I did I could actually find clothes I liked in the store (Thank you JJ Jill and Talbots dot com). When I was thirty I didn't just trip and fall while walking on dry ground or run into things like a gigantic pinball (OK, maybe I did but I did it much more gracefully than I do now). I completely grooved on my thirties.

Before you think I'm not looking at the bonus involved with turning forty and not looking at the good things that age brings, you'd be wrong. I am looking forward to discovering the new and exciting things in my life that this decade will bring.

One of the positive things I've already discovered about the "new thirty" is I can now buy those really funky little glasses I've always admired at the optometrist office but my younger self had never been brave enough to buy... because I now need reading glasses.