Later this month, I will turn 40. Forty. The big four-oh. Four decades old.

Somehow, I just can't get myself too wound up about it.

Amy Vernon grew up on Long Island and has lived in the Chicago, Miami, Phoenix and New York metropol...read more

I know I'm supposed to be all stressed out, gazing into the mirror, trying to find the latest gray hairs, making an appointment with my stylist for a coloring or something.

I'm supposed to have some big bash with my friends, commemorate the fading (fast) youth and make all sorts of jokes about how 40 is the new 30 and how I'm really turning 29 or, alternately, when I'm going to buy a walker and if I can get the senior discount at the movie theater yet.

Birthdays, to me, have always been an excuse for being selfish. Basically, it's the one day a year when it can be "all about me" and that's considered OK. If you're going to a movie with a group, everyone wants to know what you want to see. If you're going to dinner, it's all about what you want to eat. It's the one time when you can shoot down everyone else's ideas and it's OK, because it's YOUR day, it's all about what you want to do.

I like that about my birthday. In fact, I never work on my birthday anymore because I did one year and was totally miserable, because, well, I was working and it was my birthday.

But I just don't really get to stressed out about which year it is.

The first time my age really registered with me, post-college, was when I turned 25.

A friend had told me a couple years before that somehow, 25 is a weird year and is the age at which you start not being able to handle the same amount of alcohol or stay up quite as late as you'd gotten used to. I'll be damned, but he was right.

Just before I turned 27, I was driving to work one day and suddenly it occurred to me that I wouldn't be in my 20s for the rest of my life. (Side note: Don't share such an epiphany with your friends who've already turned 40 and are touchy about that fact.) It wasn't a depressing thought, it was just, "Wow. I'm halfway between 25 and 30, and my third decade's gonna be here before I know it."

As I was turning 30, a friend told me that birthday wasn't so bad, but 35 was the real shocker - that's when you suddenly have to start checking the "35-44" age box in demographic information and so you're no longer lumped in with "young" people.

So now I'm turning 40. I keep thinking I'm supposed to feel something weird about it, but I just don't. I have friends who are planning huge bashes for the occasion later this year. Parties at Disney, multi-day bashes where the kids are with the grandparents.

My husband and I discussed going down to Atlantic City while the grandmas watch the two boys, or alternately just having a week at home without the kids, going to a movie in the middle of the day if we'd like, that kind of thing. His birthday is 11 days after mine, so we'll probably just "celebrate" the two days together.

We're probably going to skip the AC journey, mainly because if we lose, even though we expect to lose, it'll be kind of depressing, and who wants a depressing birthday? We haven't totally ruled it out, though; last time I went by myself, I won $1,100 at the craps table.

But even in writing this post, I just feel rather ... unconcerned about it. I'll love my birthday, of course; on the day, I'll get to eat what I want, watch what I want, have a Carvel ice cream cake to celebrate. Not sure what my gift is going to be yet, but whatever it is, I know I'll like it. I AM going to be celebrating. What I won't be is worrying.

After all, what kind of birthday would it be if I got all stressed out about it?...read more blogs