How turning 40 is different from turning 21

I’m celebrating a milestone today, so friends and family gathered this past weekend to help me come to grips with it. Actually, turning forty doesn’t bother me. I’m wiser and stronger than ever, relieved to have evolved past that phase where I wanted a nose ring.

Getting older is, after all, better than the alternative.

Looking around my house, I noticed that with few exceptions, and a couple of noteworthy additions, this was the same crew that had toasted my twenty-first birthday so many years ago.

My, how times have changed us.

There are the obvious ways we are different – a few love-handles where our rock-hard abs used to be, wrinkles invading otherwise porcelain skin, and grey hairs sprouting in unlikely places (we’ll take your word for it, Randy!)

We have changed in less-apparent ways as well. And so have our celebrations.

Here’s how.

1. In the early 1990s, mom’s two-week restriction for letting Gary spend the night or an embarrassing herpes flare-up meant you couldn’t attend the party of the year. You will never live it down how you totally missed Lola and Skip getting naked in Cathy’s jacuzzi! Today, thanks to modern technology, you no longer have to miss a thing. If the kids are sick or you have to attend a business meeting two states away or maybe you just can’t muster up the psychological strength to leave the house – don’t worry! Skype in and attend the party *virtually.* Upside: Without spending a dime, you can witness all the reasons why you lost touch with these people in the first place.

2. Back in the day, a road trip required some clean underwear and maybe a toothbrush. Now you need a separate vehicle to carry meds, makeup, your special pillow, allergen-free comforter, and 900 vitamins. Not to mention that contraption that turns you into Darth Vader. God bless middle age!

3. At ragers during college, you gathered around the keg with friends to discuss important issues, like which guy could do that thing with his tongue. The biggest decision was whether you should spend your summer paycheck on a new tattoo or maybe the Dead tour. This past weekend, I talked thyroid cysts with Karen, investment portfolios with Michael, and menstrual cramps with Bethe. I don’t care if I make it to eighty, I will always prefer to talk about tattoos or his tongue.

4. Remember when you decorated your home with Salvador Dali and MC Escher? Now you have expensive frames showcasing the blob of mismatched colors your toddler threw together in between tantrums last year. But you did get rid of all those neon beer lights and the “Tobacco Road” sign you stole in eleventh grade. Two points for maturity.

5. There is a trick to looking fabulous at forty: Avoid direct sunlight. You can run around the house turning off lights like some kind of deranged Ed Begley nightmare or you can save yourself some time and invest in a dimmer switch for the entire house. Then stock up at the local candle store. Everyone will think you’re a hopeless romantic and you can spend that Botox money on some decent artwork.

6. At the end of your college career, you’d listen to cutting edge music at least three months before anyone else even *heard* of Soup Dragons. Nowadays you gather around with your balding buddies, sing Sowing the Seeds of Love (every word, goddamn it!) and try not to cry when teenagers call it Classic Rock.

7. There was a time when you would leave the party early to have sex on the hood of your car with that hottie from work. At forty, you leave parties early to go home and sleep so you can get up in the morning and *clean* your car. Oh sure, don’t kid yourself. Forty is way too young for Viagra.

8. Go ahead and laugh at those pictures where you wore fishnets and fuck-me pumps under technicolor skirts. Now you sneak support hose under your fat jeans, complain about varicose veins, stuff swollen ankles into comfortable shoes and hope no one notices. But everyone does.

9. At one point, your parents were old and uncool. Now you’re in the same peer group. Suck on that for a while.

10. Flashing someone used to be a winning strategy. Free drinks, free ecstasy, free motorcycle rides. After forty, men simply yawn and point out where Dr. Berger went wrong. During commercials. In between touchdowns. Without taking their eyes off the screen.

Entering middle age is not bad or awful. Just different.

Much more so than you ever imagined.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many ways in which we haven’t changed. We still laugh with our tongues out. We still talk about love toys and how to avoid STDs. We’re way too loud and continue to mock conservative sensibilities.

We still love each other.

And like I said, it’s better than the alternative.