It took some doing, but here it is: Forty. That’s quite a few spins around the sun, four times the life-span of most dogs, nearly 15,000 rounds of sleep (I’m including naps) and, I don’t know, maybe 350 haircuts?
As I enter into an unknown decade populated by greying rogue hairs, andropause, lowered metabolism, higher cholesterol and the stirrings of future creaks, I wonder if I am also stepping into my most empowered epoch. Will I master my craft and rule my dominion? Will I value myself? Will I make more money? Keener choices? What more do I have to learn? Will I eat better? Will I become my own Don Draper?
From riding a bike to driving a car, going from ten to twenty looked like two different people. The glide from twenty to thirty seemed fairly marginal, but thirty-to-forty feels catyclismic. What is it about turning forty that instigates the mid-life crises? Why is the sports-car market dependent on this turn? When we publicly admit we feel totally fine about turning forty our peers remark that we’re “handling it well”. Are we? There are 300,000 words in the English language, but the only one that accurate describes turning forty is FUCK. Why?
Perhaps the best way to really describe what’s really happening is to filter it through the stages of death: anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
