B-day

It’s my birthday today. I just turned 46. Happy birthday to me! But I must confess, this is a thoroughly crappy age to be. This is the age when …

  1. … your concentration begins flagging and your thoughts wander. How much further to go? How far will I make it? There is so little achieved, so much still to prove, and time is slipping away. Like a 1500 meter runner beginning the third lap.
  2. … you are too old to be young but still young enough to remember recently having been young. You remember that cute chicks noticed you, that fashionable clothes used to fit, that there was more to Saturday nights than an evening in front of the TV.
  3. … you are too young to be considered wise and respect-inducing. You can’t really look back on past achievements yet and you aren’t a grizzly old geezer or even a dirty old man (but I’m working on that one).
  4. … it no longer is possible to double your age and pretend that you have half of your life ahead of you. You can still do this at 45. 2 times 45= 90 did not sound impossible. But 2 times 46 = 92 is out of range.
  5. … even web pages begin to insult you. When registering for a site there are boxes to tick if you are between 18 and 19, 19 and 22, 23 and 28, and even 32- 45.

 

But of course, getting older isn’t actually the problem. We all get one year older per year. And under all circumstances that is far better than the alternative … The issue is not whether we get older but what we do with the time we have. The move from London to East Asia was very good in this respect. I would have hated to have looked back on my life and realized I had spent it all in London.

This is a partially consoling thought. But the truth is, 46 sucks.