I was forty last week and, quite surprisingly, nothing fell off, exploded, or drooped without warning... despite warnings that all of those things could happen, and the insistence from certain parties that reaching this great landmark would be enough to strike fear into the heart of the most well-balanced and confident of ladies. Still, I'm much as I was before I hit the big four-o. Just why is it supposed to be big? It was uneventful, in the same way that the New Year always is... but without the countdown. I don't feel older, I don't imagine that the second that passed that took us from July 14th to July 15th made much difference to the way I look, feel, or smell. People aren't staring at me in the street (any more than usual), and I haven't felt inclined to put a down payment on a coffin. Forty was probably a huge thing in 19th century Britain, when popping your clogs at the age of twenty-eight wasn't unheard of, but these days, with the average life expectancy being about seventy-five to eighty years old, forty falls into "spring chicken" territory. Well, if not that, it certainly isn't "old duck" territory yet. I still have all my own teeth after all.
We live in a very age-conscious world, but I grew up in a world of old black and white movies... where women as old as thirty-five were still called "girls"! Imagine that. I currently think of myself as a "gal".
At age 42, Bette Davis (who I love) took the part of Margo Channing in "All About Eve", a film which became one of her best known. She was already 34 years old when she starred in "Now Voyager"... these days, unless you have cosmetic surgery eighty times and a bum-lift to boot, you can kiss bye bye to an acting career at the age of twenty-eight if you're a woman (and marriage, apparently, according to some sources), unless you don't mind always playing the "also ran" part... or the ugly sister who's been left on the shelf.
At age 40, after having being dropped by MGM, Joan Crawford made a come back at Warner Brothers where she took on the title role in "Mildred Pierce", which brought with it her first Oscar nomination and first win. Anyone feel confident about the idea of taking either one of those women aside when they hit forty to tell them that they were over the hill? Doris Day was 41 when she starred in "The Thrill of it All"... Marlene Dietrich was coming up to her fortieth birthday in "Manpower"... as was Maureen O'Hara in "Mrs Miniver".
Life may not begin at forty, as I'm pretty sure I've been living for some time, but it certainly doesn't end there. It's no hurdle to surmount, no obstacle to being successful, desirable, confident, gorgeous, and so on. I watched "Thirteen Going on Thirty" the other day (for the seventy-tenth time) and the catchphrase in that was "thirty and flirty and thriving"... well, I'm forty and naughty... and thriving.
