Excellent post Rob, and of course thanks for the citation within it.
I'd say the anticipation was worse than the event of turning 40 but the event is absolutely significant and well done for saying, as I did, that you struggled with it.
One thing I think is really true is the sense that the clock has started winding down now. Gently but noticeably. In all my previous life, I had the sense that I was building up to something, acquiring, become something new. Deciding what was valuable and less valuable to me, shedding habits and finding what I liked. Now of course I think that I will continue to acquire new things but the fundamentals of who I am and what I do are now quite settled (this is linked to why some find mental illness evening out when older). And what seems to be ahead is in large part the gradual erosion of what I became as much as becoming something entirely new - or, more optimistically, its finessing into the best version of itself.
But that leads, I think, to a more positive thought, in that what you are at 40 is what you've really built yourself to be. Good bits, bad bits, but really you. And I think that, assuming and hoping we live an average lifespan, seeing us now at the 'middle' of things can give this part of life really deep meaning - can make it seem 'present tense', as you indicate, in a very beautiful way. It's like a film - the middle of a film is often the best, the knottiest, the most 'in the film' bit of the whole film.
So I'm present tense this year. I'm not in a hurry to start my descent just yet.
Excellent post Rob, and of course thanks for the citation within it.
I'd say the anticipation was worse than the event of turning 40 but the event is absolutely significant and well done for saying, as I did, that you struggled with it.
One thing I think is really true is the sense that the clock has started winding down now. Gently but noticeably. In all my previous life, I had the sense that I was building up to something, acquiring, become something new. Deciding what was valuable and less valuable to me, shedding habits and finding what I liked. Now of course I think that I will continue to acquire new things but the fundamentals of who I am and what I do are now quite settled (this is linked to why some find mental illness evening out when older). And what seems to be ahead is in large part the gradual erosion of what I became as much as becoming something entirely new - or, more optimistically, its finessing into the best version of itself.
But that leads, I think, to a more positive thought, in that what you are at 40 is what you've really built yourself to be. Good bits, bad bits, but really you. And I think that, assuming and hoping we live an average lifespan, seeing us now at the 'middle' of things can give this part of life really deep meaning - can make it seem 'present tense', as you indicate, in a very beautiful way. It's like a film - the middle of a film is often the best, the knottiest, the most 'in the film' bit of the whole film.
So I'm present tense this year. I'm not in a hurry to start my descent just yet.