I’ve Reached My 40th Year and it Feels Weird

When I was young, every time we played pretend, I always chose to be 18. I can’t tell you why, because I don’t know. But at the time it seemed like the perfect mix of adulthood and youth. At 18, I knew I would be able to move out on my own. I would be my own person and in charge of my life. But 18 is still inside that perceived range of eternal youth. 20 seemed like a dirty concept. 20 was too old.

When I reached my 20’s, everyone dreaded 30. It was terrifying because it represented aging. 30 was a world of grey hairs, aching backs and mortgage payments. Growing up, 30 was the age everyone associated with a mid-life crisis. It was when you suddenly quit your job, bought a disgustingly expensive but ultimately useless sports car and ran away with someone totally unexpected while everyone in town whispered behind your back and judged you for losing it.

18 wasn’t everything I thought it would be. It wasn’t a shining palace of possibility. Instead, it was a crashing ocean wave of responsibility. Suddenly, I was out on my own, expected to be able to pay the bills, cook my own meals and keep an entire apartment clean. I had no idea what I was doing. All my youthful confidence evaporated, and I spent years wishing for the time that I would be steady, stable and established.

By the time I reached 30, it felt like just another number, just another year in the endless march of time gone by. 30 wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t even feel like a milestone on the way to wherever it is I’m going.

But I’m 40 now. And I’m forced to admit that 40 does feel different.

I never thought about 40 before

Life is a finite resource. Our time on this world is limited. I guess that’s what makes life so special and exhilarating. We all know that, sooner or later, it will come to an end.

The older I get, the harder it is to ignore that ticking clock. As I enter my 40’s, I feel more aware of life’s time limits than I ever did before. There’s still time to do all the things I want to do. (Or so I reassure myself.) But some opportunities do expire. So I try to hold those limitations within my consciousness, to be aware that I’d better tend the time-sensitive things so they don’t slip through my fingers.

I’ve reached the age where bending over is all it takes to make my back hurt. And a stray muscle cramp in the middle of the night can linger for days. I watch children run and play along the cul de sac where we live for hours on end, and their youthful exuberance exhausts me – though I still have plenty of energy of my own, most of the time.

Don’t get me wrong, my life isn’t winding down. I’m kind of hoping I’ll never feel like that, because I’d like to embrace everything life has to offer for as long as it flows through me. But I have become aware of the passage of time and what I do with the minutes available to me. I find myself asking if I’m spending that time wisely and if I’m happy with the results of my investments.

I can’t claim I’ve done everything exactly right. Given a chance, there are plenty of things I’d love to go back and do differently. But ironically, at 40, I now occupy that space that I longed for when I was 18. I’m confident. I’m stable. And most importantly, I’m pretty sure I’m happy.

Where has life’s road taken me?

40 might just be the new 30. Certainly I didn’t feel the encroaching tick of the clock when I hit the big 3-0. Not the way I do now. Maybe people live longer these days. Or maybe our understanding of health and biology has shifted our perspective. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I grew up on the American Dream. All through grade school, my teachers extolled the benefits of growing up in America. “You can be anything,” they reassured me. “You can do anything.” Anyone and everyone can achieve their dreams with a little hard work and elbow grease.

I’m pretty sure now that the American Dream is false advertising. At least as it was sold to me in my youth. We hear ‘you can be anything,’ and we all think of the top 1% in every category. These are the high achievers, the people steeped in money and fame for their accomplishments. The people the world is going to remember in 100 years. (Theoretically.)

But we aren’t all going to win the Nobel Prize, or the equivalent for our field. Not everyone gets to be a celebrity. It simply isn’t a viable expectation.

So as I’ve grown older, I’ve wondered what the American Dream really means to me. How do I satisfactorily achieve in a world where accomplishment is exceedingly difficult?

At age 40, my conclusion is that the most important thing is lived experience. If I can look back at the end of my days and feel like I’ve experienced enough that I don’t regret how I spent my time, it seems like it would be fair to call that a successful life.

Am I on the right track?

The question that weighs most heavily on my mind these days is: am I spending my time wisely? Am I contributing something to the world that will last?

I don’t have a lot to complain about. My life is financially stable (something I know a lot of people my age can’t say). I spend my days perusing my dream of writing. Not only am I my own boss, but I get to wake up every day and build fantastic universes and fantastic stories. And that makes me happier than I can say.

By some definitions, this makes me successful. My stories might well be the legacy I leave behind someday, my contribution to the wider world. And if that’s the case, I think I can be satisfied with that.

But am I successful enough? Certainly my stories don’t reach as many eyes as I wish they would. I’m not sure I’m doing my work justice because I struggle to get it out there and help it be discovered. Some days, I’m okay with where I am. Some days, I feel like a failure because over a decade of publishing probably should have carried me farther than it has.

I don’t know yet how I’m going to feel when I reach the end of this long and crazy road. I want to believe I have plenty of time left to be satisfied with how it all goes. Much like when I was 18, I don’t have to have it all entirely figured out at this exact moment. There’s plenty of room left for surprises – and I’m looking forward to experiencing them.

So I suppose the only conclusion I can draw about 40 so far is that I’m glad I finally got to the place where I wanted to be 20 years ago. Maybe if I keep chipping away at the task I set myself and embracing every opportunity that drifts my way, I’ll be able to say the same thing about 60.