Priorities change at 40, life no longer ‘all about me’

Whoever said 40 was fabulous? I turned the big 4-0 earlier this year and I don’t look, or feel, extraordinary like those 40-something celebrity moms with their perfect bikini bodies or the ambitious power-suit wearing businesswomen who seemingly have it all — thriving families and successful careers.

All I am is tired, burnt out and overwhelmed — perhaps a sign of aging. I may be older, but I definitely don’t feel wiser. Instead I’m in a stage of reevaluating life and reflecting on what I need to do to get on track to “living the dream.”

One of my closest friends recently told me that 40 is the “point where your life is halfway done and when you’re just feeling like you’ve sacrificed … for school, for your family, for your kids, for your husband, for your job … and you realize your time is running out.”

That’s when it happens … the midlife crisis.

“So you go through this whole crisis and you want to reinvent yourself or you want to try to get the things that you’ve always wanted, but you couldn’t have because you had to sacrifice, like the Corvette or the boob job,” she says.

Forty is when your metabolism significantly slows down and it’s twice as hard, as my cousin warned, to lose the weight you put off losing in your 30s. (I can fully attest to that … ugh!) It’s the point where you can’t use any more excuses for the mistakes you’ve made in the past because by now, you should know better. There’s no defense for stupidity, laziness or lack of ambition. No more putting things off until later — because later is already here.

I used to relish being the life of the party. Always one of the first on the dance floor or hogging the mic at karaoke bars.

But as I reach middle age, I am less thrilled to be the center of attention.

It’s no longer “all about me,” as it was in my raging 20s when my biggest concern was where we were going to surf at dawn and party at dusk. (It was in my 28th year that I met my husband wearing my tequila goggles at the Mai Tai Bar at Ala Moana Center.)

In my 30s, life became more complicated when I was thrown into motherhood and I struggled to figure out how to raise a family while maintaining my sanity.

I have come a long way since then.

Still, it was a rude awakening the first time someone called me “ma’am.” I was like, “Say what?!” As was the time I tried to put on an old pair of short shorts, but it could only go as high as my thighs. That’s when age slapped me in the face.

That should have been my cue to get it together, find my purpose and graciously embrace getting older.

Forty may not be fabulous but perhaps it’s not as bad as I think.

Sure I have patches of gray hair that I frequently color and it’s much harder to lose those pesky pounds.

But I still have my health, loving family, good friends and two wonderful children who are still young enough to want their mommy and daddy around.

And they say 40 is the new 30 so I have 10 more years to get it together … without plastic surgery.

“She Speaks” is a weekly column by women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Kristen Consillio at kconsillio@staradvertiser.com.