Turning forty is not something I am concerned about. Why should I be? An apology for the cliché, but age is just a number… Isn’t it?
There are many things said about being forty:
Life begins at forty.
Forty is the new thirty.
You’re not forty; you’re eighteen with 22 years’ experience.
*Roll* *Eyes*
I’ll be forty. My life is half way over. I will be dead within half a century – of that there is very little doubt. I’m over the hill, past the point of no return; it’s all downhill from here.
Or is it?
You know, I’m better now than I have ever been. I have more money, more responsibility, a better job, a future, prospects, options, opportunities. I travel, I go out, I have good mates and a fledgling ‘beautiful friendship’ that could ‘be something’. I have never been better off, better placed, better fed, better equipped, better experienced.
Forty is good.
The mess that is my twenties and thirties when I was directionless is behind me. My life is bloody good. And being forty does not detract from that, oh hell no. When I see people saying how scared they are about turning forty, how they are terrified of the Big Four Ohh, how they hate the idea of being one year older, I smile. The difference between thirty nine and forty is a millisecond or less. The different between thirty nine and forty is nothing. Al at thirty nine is no different to the Al at forty, and anyone who thinks there’s a difference between being thirty nine and 365 days and thirty nine and 366 days needs to give their head a shake.
Embrace forty because you’ll never be forty again. You’re over the hill, past the point of no return; it’s all downhill from here…
