On Turning 40…Please Advise

My birthday has always been one of my favourite days of the year. Ok. It is my favourite day of the year. Or at least, it was. This year I will be saying goodbye to my thirties. You know, the decade we lump together with the twenties. That was really great. Sigh. I know this is all about perspective and everyone over 40 reading this is rolling their eyes at me. But I am not 50 thinking 40 is young. I’m 39 damn it. And this is hard.

Just 4 - no zero

I have always loved my birthday because, well, I love being special. It’s likely a by-product of me being a first born - you know, thinking I’m special all the time. I also love getting presents. There’s no point to censoring myself at this point - I’m turning 40 - I can say whatever I want now, right? My birthday parties have never been particularly lavish but they have always been great. Well, except maybe my 30th birthday when Eric threw me a family pot-luck in our backyard. That was only ok.

I also love planning and throwing parties and Eric and I have become quite good at it. I have learned - finally - that the key to being a good host is drinking. I am the much nicer, more relaxed version of myself with a couple of one ounce Cosmos in me (I feel I've mentioned this before). I therefore assumed that I would want a big party for my fortieth. But the closer it gets I am not so sure and I don’t know why. I think I would want a hand in planning it and that seems, well, wrong. But is it? I feel like I don’t actually want the attention for this particular birthday. I also sometimes feel like big parties are actually quite impersonal and maybe the introvert in me wants a little more one-one-one time with my close friends for this one. 

Oh, 40. My magic number is 27. That’s the age my mind tells me I am. Maybe it’s because that’s the year I had my first child. ‘Life’ was still fully ahead of me. For so much of our lives we don’t think about the passing of time.  We just live. Then there is a shift and all of sudden we become acutely aware that time is finite. And I’ve always had a thing with ‘the end’. Somewhere on this laptop is a dusty blog about the obituary I want written and the vision I have of my own funeral. (I’ll post it, but only with some begging.)

So to mark the occasion of turning 40, I want your opinion. And I know many of you are also turning 40 this year. Go 1976! I’ll likely just do what I want anyway but I’m hoping something someone says will resonate with me.  What do you think about celebrating a fortieth? What would you want? What did you do? What would you have done differently? Milestone birthdays are quite personal and I know there will be quite a range of responses. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comment section below.

How are you? Terrible actually, and you?

How are you? We ask this question all the time. It is the English language’s equivalent to scratching an itch. You have an itch, you scratch it. You see a human, you say hi, how are you? It is an automated question for most of us; just like its response - good thanks, how are you? How the heck else would we begin a conversation with people? 

We also ask how are you? in a compassionate way to people who are going through a difficult time like a break-up, a divorce, an illness, a death or some other kind of loss. What kind of jerk would a person have to be to not ask a person suffering how they are? Well, now that it’s in writing it seems a little less…compassionate, doesn’t it?

I am confident in saying that when people are going through a tough time the LAST thing they want is every person they bump into asking them how they are. Would you like a little salt with that wound?  The recipient of such an unfortunate question really only has three options to respond with: lie and say they are fine, thanks with a forced smile; give you the sordid details of their suffering only to have to tell it all over to the next person who asks them how they are; or say I’m shit actually and walk away.

How many times have I done this in my life? I just did it yesterday.  What kind of answer did I expect? What kind of answer do we ever expect? We are trying to be kind but instead we are just inflicting a little bit more discomfort to an already unfortunate situation. Haven’t we all been in a situation where we have dreaded someone asking us how we are? Do I want to ask my newly divorced staff member how he is? Am I prepared to have a grown man crying in my arms? Of course I’m not. 

How are you? is actually a deeply personal question when asked of someone struggling. It should be reserved for the ones most closest to us. The ones we can actually be honest with, cry with, yell at, curse in front of and even curse at. The rest of us, most of us, don’t have the right to this information.

There is a better way to show we care.  It will just take a lot of practice to override that automated response we always default to. Here are some things we can say to people when we want them to know we care:

Hey. I’m thinking about you. Let me know if you need anything.

It’s nice to see you out. I hope you’re doing okay.

Welcome back. It’s great to see you. We’ve missed you.

Well, that’s all I’ve got right now but at least it’s a start. How could I have been such a jerk all this time?  Challenge yourself to abandon asking the dreaded how are you? to a person who would rather stick a fork through their hand than answer that well-intentioned yet super annoying and insensitive question.