On Turning 40
I freakin love my birthday and this newsletter is a belated gift to myself.
Why I love my birthday
I love, love, LOVE my birthday. I start thinking about how I’m going to celebrate my next one, maybe a week after I just celebrated my last one. My husband likes to say that I come up with really awesome ideas, that are nearly impossible to execute.
I love my birthday because it is the one day (or in my case, month) that I feel invited (entitled?) to do whatever I want. I make all the plans. I buy all the things. I see all the friends. I emote all the feelings. And it feels appropriate - people expect you to do exactly what you want when it’s your birthday. It’s the other 364 days in the year, where doing exactly what you want, when you want and how you want, can seem self-indulgent or inconsiderate. It’s tough to follow your truth, be authentic to your needs, and draw healthy boundaries - when you also want to be liked, admired and praised. But on my birthday, I do me fully, and no one holds it against me.
It’s been my life goal to live every day a little more like my birthday. And every year, I get a little closer.
A snapshot of milestone birthdays
I turned 40 a couple months ago. It sounds strange, but it felt like a true coming of age. One I've earned and am still unapologetically celebrating. It has me thinking about all the other birthdays, especially the ones they tell you are major…
At 13, I stood in front of my community, affirmed my maturity with a public recitation in a foreign language, and an interpretation of an ancient text. I felt a sway in my hips, as I walked in heels and a form fitting dress, my hair straightened and my make up done. My Bat Mitzvah celebration felt like a debutante ball - with my womanly body hugging my adolescent angst. An age where I interpreted cat calls as an affirmation of my attractiveness, and felt a deep, bittersweet longing for affection and attachment.
At my sweet 16, I gushed with my besties that the hottest guy in the grade above us was in fact leaning against the counter in my kitchen, and we all laughed in an unspoken agreement that this was high school success. Soon after, I left for a summer program in Switzerland, where I felt my own power, removed from my bubble. Without the security of my best friends, I was reminded of what I have to offer and how easily I can connect with others.
When I turned 18, I couldn't wait to be on the other side of summer, in my college dorm room, to fully experience my first real taste of freedom on the opposite side of the country from my childhood home. To stay out all night, to answer to no one, and to do whatever I thought I wanted. College still feels like the most transformative phase of my life, with the first real successful attempts at differentiation and sovereignty.
My 21st birthday was also a homecoming from those three monumental years, as I moved back into my childhood bedroom, regressed to my pubescent angst, and tried to figure out how to continue partying with my pre-college friends, while they started their senior year and I held my first full-time job.
30 was anything but dirty. A sit down garden dinner for my closest friends, following a breakup and six months into my post-corporate freelancing life. I felt the magic of possibility more than the anxiety of uncertainty. I truly embraced where I was in my life, finally understanding that it all works itself out and if we don't rush the timing, we get to enjoy each vignette for the unique experience it offers.
Why 40 is the new 13.
And now, 40. THIS, this, feels like my coming out party. My less-fucks-given era (because honestly, only sociopaths give ZERO fucks.) My - embrace who I am right this second, grateful to the versions I've been, trusting the process of who I am still becoming - era. My - I know some shit, but I hardly know shit - era.
As a belated birthday gift myself and to the girl who was pouring her feelings into a diary, processing her sense of belonging in a journal, and typing out letters of self-reflection until two in the morning - I am launching my Substack newsletter.
I really freaking love a good email in my inbox (RIP Daily Candy and the original Skimm) and a newsletter has been asking to be written for a long time.
I hope you will read, you will smile, you will ruminate, and you will share.
Until next time, keep living that birthday life.
Love,
Jess