Once upon a time 40 was the old
50, but now that baby boomers
have made 50 the new 30, what’s
a 40-something to do? In the
aging game, it can’t be worse than to have been
born the year Kennedy died, or soon thereafter,
because almost everybody who came before you
knows something you’ll  never know and, they’ll
be smug to admit, are all the cooler for it. In this
time on earth, those in their 40s really
are a lost generation – the
fortynothings. They never
made it on to anybody’s
radar. They didn’t have
to fight the Vietnam war,
STD’s hit in the decade of
their sexual prime, and,
horror of horrors, that same
decade, the ’80s, gave us big
hair, glam rock and Jimmy
Carter. (We love Jimmy
now, but, seriously, he
was a downer when
he had the big job.)
Even among the
crop of presidential
candidates only
Barack Obama was born
in the ’60s. Indeed, what is a
44-year-old to do?
These questions were on the mind at a
friend’s 45th birthday soirée that occurred
on one of the coldest days of winter (another
insult). It was a costume party, of course, and do
I need to tell you it’s not a pretty sight to see
middle-agers done up as Olivia Newton-John,
Pat Benatar, Deborah Harry and Gene Simmons.
Mr. Strange went as Walter Mondale while I was
Joan Jett, an intentionally improbable couple.
The birthday boy himself was Michael Jackson,
which should have clued us all in to the troubled
She met Whitman at the Battle of
Fredericksburg. Already a famous poet and
journalist, Whitman was there looking for his
brother, who had been reported wounded. His
aid to the fallen men on the battlefield would
mindset of the 40ish male, especially since his
wife dressed as Mikhail Gorbachev. Seriously, all
that was needed to make this cork pop was some
LSD in the champagne punch. But everyone
behaved because this is, after all, Washington.
Here are some facts about the 40s: It’s when
we face our first intimations of mortality, and
cross the bridge from eternal youth to aging.
We notice the ride has changed and we’re
not as thrilled by the sharp curves and
deep dips that used to make us giddy
with infallibility. There are gray hairs
and crow’s feet and the debate over
“do I or don’t I” when hearing others
praise Botox, dermabrasion, acid peels,
nips, tucks and everything else on
the overhaul menu. Just remember,
it creates a fork in the road. In one
direction is Pamela Harriman and in
another Jocelyn Wildenstein.
The cruelest turn is
when children begin
to fly out of the nest
and we’re left at the
breakfast table, sitting
across from only each
other, while the big
Peggy Lee question
hits smack between
the eyes: is that all
there is? And the next question: do you keep
dancing or do you jump ship? It’s not so much
that a lot of people divorce in their 40s, but it
is the decade when looking around becomes a
possibility, which can then evolve into divorce
in the 50s or 60s. It’s now when the tracks
are laid for the next 40 years, because that’s all
you’ve got if you are among the fortunate.
Milestones, markers, goals, dreams – they all
come to roost in your forties. For women it’s
marriage and babies, especially if having one –
a marriage and/or a baby – is still an unfulfilled
ambition. For men, it’s about the top job. Is it
on the horizon, within reach, or not likely to
happen? If it hasn’t happened by 45, it may
never. As times have changed, women have put
the baby issue aside for careers while men have
put careers aside for family. Now, the bell tolls
for both.
Then there’s the simple agony of the
pervasiveness of youth, whether it confronts
you while paging through a fashion magazine,
going to a film, walking down the street, or
stepping onto a jet and taking a glance into
the cockpit. Younger people are everywhere
and they are gaining ground. Suddenly, you
wish you lived in China, where people in their
90s are revered as the masters of the universe.
Sigh. Back to my friend’s party where I,
Joan Jett, found myself on the dance floor with
the birthday boy, Michael Jackson, trying to
rock it to Van Halen’s Jump – not a pretty sight.
Spent and sweaty, we retreated to a sofa. “It was
easier 20 years ago with a head full of blow,”
he said. “Roger that,” I laughed, as much at his
words as his melting “white face” make-up and
the sparkly solo glove. Why do we try so hard?
Is it because 45 is close enough to 30 that we
think we can turn back the hands of time?
“Look on the bright side,” I told him. “In five
years you’ll be 50, born again and able to start
over without having to make any excuses.” Or,
he can move to China.
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