Celebrating the advent of power 40? really?

Have stopped writing the blog for a month because I need to finish my first chapter of my PhD thesis. It's quite an agonizing but also exhilarating experience as it's like giving birth to my baby. Once the first chapter is done, it's like I have got my first baby out and am waiting to see if it turns out to be with mild defects or, seriously impaired. Await Judgement from my supervisor.
To me, stages of Life mean trials after trials. In the past three years, I have been through a lot: my mother's death on the day I left for London for my study, and then my divorce, two months after my mother's death, and then my return to Hong Kong for fieldwork and moved to the village. Then, my father's death and now will need to move back to London for six months, next year.
Another thing that haunts most of the people, I guess more to women, is aging. It reminds me that I am coming to another stage when I have to act like a sophisticated, cool, well-educated lady. I try, but, believe me, it's not really what I am in person. Unlike other women who are very concerned about the age thing, I have never felt this threat until I see my hair turning grey, strand after strand. It's a genetic thing. But it also tells me that my doll face would perhaps need to be more well taken of.
This is shared by my friends who were with me since high school. We were celebrating the 10th wedding anniversary of one of our great high school friends. And then during the buffet lunch, we lamented at how time flies. And how we were marching close to 40, with one already passed that. And Mine is coming soon. I wasn't too worried about that. Perhaps because I really didn't change that much. But I guess it's more to do with the consolation from those women magazines. I recently read two articles from two women magazines (well... one women and one tabloid). The quintessential Vogue age issue was talking about Christy Turlington and how she has reinvented herself as an activist from a model and of course, with her perennial good look, one couldn't deny that you can still look good and graceful and even more powerful at 40 because of your experience and intelligence.
And then across the Atlantic, there is Hello!, which features the fab bodies at 40 with Cindy Crawford, Carla Bruni (aka Carla Sakozy), Jennifer Lopez,Nicollete Sheridan (who looks the least desperate with her killer body). It's certainly a boost to an ordinary woman like me who is aspiring to be close to one of them, even not one of them, by exercising rigorous regimen (healthy diet; sports and regular exercising)
eh...em.. But to be honest, Even though I love to look pretty and young, I love myself more. Believe me, I will try to keep up. But life is more than just looking good, I want to have fun and I want to be happy. So, I will still exercise because I love sports, but for food..... well... sometimes, occasionally, I want to feel good by savoring a delectable meal. Well, you know how Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden? It's because of an apple, again, food!!! And coming to age (forty), I would love to have more fun than just winning the jealous eyes of men and women. Vanity, thy name is no women, at least not me.