This is 40.

Four decades of hearts and spades -

The heat of summer slowly fades…

From not caring what the world thinks,

To discovering it doesn’t care to think.

Grey hair, crow feet, and wrinkles -

Merrily coexisting with still surfacing pimples.

Stuck between saving for the future,

And realizing “you live life only once”!

The bartender no longer asks for my ID,

And neck tightening cream ads crowd the feed on FB (seriously, wtf!)

People around me keep getting younger…the teacher, the police officer…

Can’t keep my new ob/gyn - ffs, the doctor needs to be older!

20 years ago is no longer in the 90s

George Clooney and Hugh Grant are in their 60s!

New words sneak into my vocabulary -

Retinoid, collagen and apparently the need for vitamin c?

Trying to hold a plank and committing to regular stretching,

While snapping some unknown muscle doing nothing .

The self righteous follies of younger days

Have moved over for calmer acceptance of others’ ways..

While my jokes continue to be incorrect, politically,

In my heart I surely am less judgmental.

Also, the way it goes, Age is just a number…

But pls somebody wake my metabolism up from its slumber!

Life begins at 40, they say

9 pm is when I am done with the day.

Quadragenarian is the word. fellow millennials!

40 is the new 20 they advertise,

40 is the new 40, I summarize.

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38Nithya Iyer, Aparna Bhaduri and 36 others