One of the best memories from my childhood was serving as a bat boy for my dad’s “over 40” baseball team. My brother and I did the job together as we sat in the dugout, sipped Gatorade from the cooler, and retrieved the bats. We loved being around the baseball players and truly made the most of it.

But as I mentioned, it was an “over 40” team. My dad joined the squad shortly after he became eligible and took every chance he could to call it “the old man’s league.”

The moniker truly rubbed off on me as I came to view everyone on the team, even the “younger” guys, as old. Reaching that age almost seemed impossible.

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Today I turn 40.

That was tough to type. Not going to lie, it smarts a bit. I have dreaded reaching this milestone for a long time. In fact, the reflection I wrote when I turned 39 primarily focused entirely on how uncomfortable I was with “40” being right around the corner.

Not since I turned 25 have I felt so much emotional discontent and anxiety about celebrating a birthday. Even with the long grace period I gave myself to prepare for the big “4-0” I still feel mildly distressed about today. Can’t I have my thirties back?! 😢

But now that 40 has arrived and there is no turning back perhaps this feeling of “oldness” will dissipate. In fact, I think it already has (to a degree).

Thanks to family, co-workers, and friends who have reached out to celebrate my milestone, turning 40 is a little easier than I thought. With the page now officially turned from “39” to “40” I think that has helped too. So often in life the dread of an occurrence is always worse than the occurrence itself. I was unsuccessful at stopping time (I guess you really can’t stay in your thirties forever) and now I just need to embrace the “fortiness” of it all.

My University Relations team members helped make turning 40 a little easier today by throwing me a celebration that came complete with my favorite guilty pleasure…Costco muffins!

And that’s what I plan to do. I might be over the hill but everything I valued 24 hours ago still remains. I have a beautiful family, a great job, and a solid faith. Sorry Father Time, you can’t take those things from me!

In preparation for turning 40, I read a book titled The Gift of Years. I found the following passage particularly profound: When we count age as nothing but a series of losses, we lose site of its gains. Instead of counting the tally marks under my age column as defeats, I need to count them as wins. I can bring the lessons from those victories over to this side of the hill and live life really well. I am going to remember that moving forward.

Despite my initial angst of this day, I think 40 is already starting to grow on me. It has been a great birthday. My co-workers threw me a celebration complete with my favorite guilty pleasure—Costco muffins. And then tonight especially hit the mark: an evening spent with my wife and kids chowing down on Papa Murphy’s pizza and cake.

Sidney spoiled me on my 40th birthday. I really do have the best wife.

There is no more time for sulking! When I was pigging out with my kids, they didn’t care that my age was now a double digit number prefaced with a “4”. I think I will take the same approach.

It was really sweet how kind and eager to impress my kids were to me on my 40th birthday.

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So to return to my baseball story I shared at the beginning, I hope my forties are a grand slam. I will spend this year in the leadoff spot attempting to smack a solid base hit.

But perhaps the story might provide more inspiration than just a cheesy metaphor. Despite the “40” label, my dad went out and did something as a middle-aged man that brought him the same joy he experienced as a boy. I need to find that type of happiness in a similar way. Because when you are having fun and doing something you love, what does age matter anyway? Don’t Blink.

Past Birthday Posts
Turning 39
Turning 38
Turning 37
Turning 36
Turning 35
Turning 34
Turning 33
Turning 32
Turning 31
Turning 30