I love my 40s! Really! Of all the decades of my life, the 40s have been my favorite. But as I near the beginning of my 50th year, I’ve come to realize that my 40s are, with apologies to Dickens, the best of times and the worst of times. (And thank you, Jim, for pointing out that when we turn 49, we begin our 50th year!)
Truly, I wouldn’t trade my 40s for the world. Why? Experience and Wisdom.
Now I am neither experienced nor wise, but I have, over the years, gained a bit of each. What that’s given me is a much different perspective of the world than I had in my 20s. Don’t get me wrong…..I had some great times in my 20s, but those times now seem hollow when viewed through the lenses of experience and wisdom.
What I have gained over the years is the wisdom to pick my battles and to know that not everything is a tragedy of epic proportions. Sometimes it is better on the soul to let things (and people) go. While doing so may hurt in the short term, the hurt eventually lessens and life improves.
Probably the most important concept I have come to embrace is being comfortable with me. In my 20s, I was too busy trying to be who everyone else thought I should be. I didn’t have time to get to know me. After struggling for decades with the whole worrying about what others thought and living my life the way others thought I should, I finally came to realize in my mid-40s that the only person to whom I need to prove anything is ME! If you like me, fine. If you don’t, that’s your problem and I am no less a person because you don’t, so get over yourself! It was such a freeing realization…freeing because I no longer let others control my life.
The freedom brought with it some anger as well. I found that I was angry at others for trying to impose their beliefs and their lifestyles on me. For goodness sake, people, just because I am almost 50 and not married does not mean that I am a lesbian! I’m just much too picky about with whom I want to spend the rest of my life and I have seen too many friends struggle with horrible relationships. Not for me! There are no hidden agendas and I am not fooling myself by staying deep in the closet. (If you’d see my closet, you’d have a much better understanding of why I could not be in it! I’m a Fibber McGee in training.)
The downside of being in my 40s is death and aging. It seems like anymore, someone I know has completed or is about to complete the last season of his/her life. Not a week goes by now that I don’t see a familiar name in the newspaper obituaries. My own parents have aged dramatically in the past few years, very sudden and dramatic reminders that they are much too much closer to passing.
My own body and mind remind me that 50 is just around the corner. Sure you knew that bit of information, they taunt, but it’s gone now! They mock me when I attempt to garden as I did when I was younger, pointing out that I do, indeed, need to stretch before moving pavers and landscaping rocks.
Even with the downside, though, I wouldn’t trade my 40s for any other age I have lived through. Too bad they are almost over. I’ve taken comfort, however, in something a friend said recently: 50 is the new 40. I certainly hope so!
