I’ve watched Golden Girls since…okay, since the episodes were new. And I always used to think it was so silly when Blanche would want her name in the paper as, “Blanche Deveroux, 35.” Like, why???

Yeah. Now I get it.

You can now refer to me as Heather Curley COMMA 35.

I just turned 40. The big 4-0. I remember when my dad turned 40 and people put out Over the Hill balloons and decorating his office in black crepe paper. “That’s sooooo old!” Twelve-year-old Heather said. “Parents are sooo oooolddd!!”

And here I am. Part of the old.

It’s funny, because I’ll sit there and think, oh wow, that place has been in business for twenty-five years! That’s like, 1985 or something! NO IT WAS 1997 AND I WAS 15. The 1980s? Not twenty-years ago. 2000, the Millennium, Y2K?? My twelve-year-old son says, “People really thought that computers couldn’t go from 1999 to 2000? That they’d mess up and planes would fall out of the sky? Why?”

I don’t know. But we were all concerned and I didn’t go to a New Year’s Eve party with my friend and her brother because “Just in case.”

My BFF and her husband surprised me on this, the day of my 40th birthday. We had celebratory Mexican food (which, upon further reflection, I also had on my 13th birthday, except it was Chi-Chi-s and I wore a giant blue sombrero. I mean…I didn’t own the giant blue sombrero, I wore it while they sang to me and presented me with fried ice cream. Man, I miss Chi-Chi’s) and then ate cake. My children, WHO I BIRTHED, told me that they didn’t put the correct number of candles on the cake because that ‘a fire hazard.’ The Hubs said, “We just put on a candle for each decade you’ve enjoyed.”

Ah. Gotcha.

My BFF–and, as an aside, I’d like to note that we’ve been BFF since third grade, and that’s like….32 years now. INSANE–brought me the most important gift a new 40 year old could want: ibuprofen. Because, apparently, the line between youth and old age–39 to 40–is a big one. Older Son came downstairs to check on me while I was working (because, I guess without Life Alert, I can’t be trusted to make it through the day on my own) and I turned to look at him. And when I say turned, what I mean is that I started to move my body in the direction of a turn, but part of the way there, this nerve or muscle or entire upper portion of my back just like, cramped. So, I’m sitting there, with my shoulders all hunched up to my ears, breathing like I’m in labor, and hoping that the muscle will unclench enough that I can face my computer again.

Older Son said, “Why are you sitting like that, Mom?”

And I said, “Because I can’t actually put my shoulders down.”

So that was fun. Now I’m the age where sleeping too aggressively means I can’t turn my neck all the way to the left. I complain about this to The Hubs and he just nods at me, like he’s the old Knight at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and just imparting wisdom to me. “That’s 40.” He said. This, coming from a man who on a cruise was told by the masseuse, “Your back is so tight!! Relax!” To which he paused and said, “I am relaxed.” She told him that she thought he had some arthritis starting at his neck and ending approximately at his TAIL BONE. But fine. I mean, he was in the Army. He was deployed. He’s got dry pretzel rods for legs, just waiting for an inopportune time to to give out on him. But he’s a champ. Why is my eye dry but simultaneously watering? It’s because you’re 40, Heather. I slept facing the left instead of the right and now my back hurts. It’s because you’re 40, Heather. I did a yoga move during my workout and my hamstring cramped up for ten minutes and I thought, well, this is how I die, as I rolled back and forth across the carpet saying “ow ow ow ow ow.” It’s because you’re 40, Heather.

So, that’s a new adventure. A new age bracket. I still choose to be offended when I go to minor league baseball games and notice a cute 3rd baseman and then look up his info and find out he was born in 2000 THE YEAR I GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL. But, that’s fine. Did I lose a contact lens in my eye after turning 40 and having worn contacts since I was seventeen? Yes. Surely a coincidence. Does the new trainee on my team at work not remember 1999 because he was four? Yes, but you can’t fault him for youth. Apparently.

Adios, Dirty 30s. Hellooooo Foxy 40s. Feisty 40s? Fabulous 40s? It’s probably gonna be more like Forgot Where I Put My Keys 40s. Or, as I told my aunt, 35 plus shipping and handling.