That's why I never bothered with class reunions.

As for the phrase "this is what 40 looks like", it's true that given a combination of luck, genetics, and serious dedication to fitness and diet, it's possible to look like those images of your 40-year-old friends. But I get seriously irritated by having "hot" 40-year-olds and "super seniors" trotted out by friends, spouses and the media as "inspirational" examples of how woman can look as we grow older. Most of us would recoil at the thought of holding up a picture of a supermodel as an "inspirational' image for a teenage girl, so why isn't there the same sense of outrage when these images are directed toward older women?

As you said, Mo, you have a pretty healthy sense of yourself and don't need others to reinforce that you can hold your own with your friends. The more interesting point is your observation that external comparisons can still exert a powerful hold on our sense of self, even though we've long left high school behind. Those feelings of not measuring up, and wanting to emulate others, obviously don't go away very easily.

I was going to just quietly leave this alone But I have a few things to say. Genetics are for sure part of the lottery. My friend Alice in the first pic is not a health nut. She did roller derby for a year but is not one to run or hit a gym or the like. She has been in on your feet jobs since 16, so never lived a sedentary life either. She's 40.
My other peer from high school (44 like me) does work out hard and it's literally her job. She has had 2 kids and still is ripped. Good for her.
As for more serious things in life . . . I don't want to start anything, but looking a certain way does not mean that other things don't affect you or that you are also not dealing. When I went home to Tahoe in March, Alice called to say she couldn't do my hair because her stepmom had been diagnosed with late stage cancer and the man child her father is would now be the one looking after her down syndrome younger brother.
Anyway, as I said, it just kind of occurred to me that 40 looks different than I thought it would. And this isn't even beginning to address the 20 year olds. There was a gal who I kid you not was a model before hostessing for us. But all in all, it's just an observation, not an obsession, that was brought on by the very similar wording from a post here and a post on Facebook.

Some everyday pics of the ladies: Alice and I on a gal's night having WAY too much fun, and Michelle today training at her gym (in the crazy pants)

LOL, and I'm just coming back to say that from where I sit at 55, 40 sounds impossibly young! I'm always so surprised by all the fuss about "looking good in your 40s." OF COURSE you look good in your 40s - you're in your prime!

IK is killing me on this thread.

Oh, and Gaylene, don't even get me started on external comparisons . . . I had a customer one night verbally comparing my backside to my coworker's. In front of both of us. Favorably, but still. Tacky, awkward, but unfortunately part of the job when you deal with intoxicated tourists. He was ducking out quickly before a wedding reception going on across the street. Sigh.

Mo, I do know what it's like. When I was in my mid 20s, I worked with two former beauty pageant winners, at the same time. They were the same age as me. One of them came to work everyday with Texas "big hair" and pageant makeup. (I only realized this one day at a meeting when across the conference table I noticed she had weird shadowing on her face which changed the appearance of her nose.). Anyway it was an interesting experience.

*laughing*
Well, from 65, not only is a 40-year-old a youngster who ought to live in her bikini, but 55 seems pretty prime territory as well, MsMary! And I think I hear someone in her eighties scolding all of us for thinking we are old!

But I have to say, Mo, that I totally admire your restraint when dealing with that intoxicated creep. We were much less tactful when a male colleague made inappropriate remarks to a female staff member; our observations about his tush left him red-faced and profusely apologetic. I think he realized, in the future, to keep his "compliments" to himself.

Mo, that was my manager comparing tushes at one place I worked!!! And I was not coming off well in comparison to my friend.

for sure Suz.