So there you are… zooming along life’s highway. Things are mostly going fine – good days, some bad days, and then it hits. Like a ton of bricks, it smacks you down with a vengeance. You realise with horror that you have just turned forty. Ack! Half way to eighty!
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So you think; ‘Well, it’s only half-way – I’m still young, really”. You try to convince yourself of that, but don’t really succeed. What ever happened to twenty-one? Gone. Gone forever.
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I look around, at the things that make up ‘my’ life. I’ve not done too badly, really. Sure, we don’t own our own home, but we don’t have any loans with a bank, either. We own whatever we have, including our vehicles. We have eight beautiful, happy children, who are fast turning into teenagers (and by the way, nobody told me ‘forty’ also meant dealing with horrid teenagers – one side-effect they neglected to mention). But, life is pretty much OK.
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Mind you, there are the health issues. After those eight babies and the forty years, the body simply doesn’t ‘go’ like it used to. I’m tired, the muscles ache and groan, and I carry around far too much weight. And try as I might, it just won’t seem to go away. The doctor has me on various medications for a number of ‘things’ – and all of these were prescribed in the last year. Not to mention the grey hair; man! You’re zooming along just fine, and then it’s one, two, three; FORTY grey hairs! No fair – they could have waited, just a little while longer.
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They say ‘life begins and forty’. I hope they’re right. For me, I’d just love to make it through one bush dance without collapsing. I have, however, made it through all the nappies, and all the screaming toddlers. The children are older, and while it terrifies me in once sense (time with them is running out), it’s also allowing me the freedom to pursue some of my own interests, like art, especially oil painting.
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So often in my life, I’ve quoted the line from ‘When Harry Met Sally’:
“And I’m gonna be FORTY!”
“When?” Harry asks.
“Some day!” sobs Sally.
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Well, so much for ‘some’ day. Here it is – I AM forty. I tried to avoid it, to deny it, and just to ignore it. But it happened anyway, darn it all. When I turned thirty, I spent the day in tears. No tears today, although I am trembling a little; more from fear this time – I see why people go through a mid-life crisis!
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Ah, well – it comes to all of us, I guess. Unless you’re dead, of course. And when you look at it like that, I’d rather be forty. I’m still young enough to have dreams, plans and goals. I’m still young enough to loose that weight and increase my fitness. I’m still young enough to laugh and enjoy life. And by golly gosh, that’s just what I’m going to do.
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Linda Maher
12 January 2008
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