Thread: The Nexus of Milestone Birthdays and Diet Culture

I turn 40 later this summer. Yesterday, the hands fell off the face of my watch; inauspicious.

I briefly flirted with the idea of throwing myself a big 40th party and then immediately changed my mind. Too much work, too much effort, too expensive. Also, I just can't be bothered. I'm struggling to get it up for turning 40.

I don't want to plan a big 40th Birthday Girls' Trip or a road trip. I don't want to hear any saccharine platitudes about life starting at 40. I don't have a spouse to get mad at if they blow my birthday expectations that I didn't clearly communicate. I don't want to plan a birthday party that is effectively a small wedding. I haven't learned all the lessons you're supposed to learn by the time you turn 40; I'm constitutionally incapable of learning from my mistakes so I don't have 40 pearls of wisdom to share. I can't even think of 40 things to put on a bucket list. I won't be reinventing myself but I am temped to throw a LauraFest; it will be less mini-music festival and more pulling a Claire-Louise Bennett, absconding to Ireland and writing sentences that become increasingly detached from reality.

I've been trying to unpick if this is coming from a place of feeling sorry for myself – I am, after all, a midlife cliché (lol) – but the more I think about it, the more I realise I just don't want to turn my birthday into a self-congratulatory spectacle; we are past the point where living to 40 is a triumph of evolution. It's the performance of it that I resent. Or, the pressure to perform.

My social media and Substack feeds are full of people hitting their 40th in crazy elaborate ways. Multiple-day/week/month-long celebrations that mostly revolve around consumption. Extravagant trips to tropical islands. Show-y parties. Elaborate gifts. You get the deal.

Then one post finally said the quiet part out loud. The real source of pressure and expectation behind the milestone birthday.