Forty.

When I was born the life expectancy for an first-world male was about 67 years old. Most people got married and had children in their early twenties. This lead to an easy and sensible idea of middle-aged beginning at forty. By forty you were supposed to be settled in your career, a proven and competent parent, a pillar of society. Over halfway through your life and having achieved most of the important things that would happen in your life.

I turned forty last week and I've been thinking since then that I should write something on this blog about what should be a significant milestone. However, I haven't been able to think of anything to say. So, I'm forty. I don't feel substantially different than when I was 25. Looking at life-expectancy tables my life-expectancy is now about 78 years, and of course the longer I live the longer I can be expected to live. So, I'm probably somewhere about halfway through my life.

In talking to my father he is a believer that middle-aged, experienced and capable but still active, is more like 50-60 than 40 (as it was when he went through it). I still have a part of my self-identification as being an athlete, something I was growing up. But for about twenty years I've been overweight. Should I stick to my present exercise regime (and it seems very likely that I will under my present circumstances) there's an excellent chance that I will physically be fitter than I have been since a teenager. While it would be nice to be prettier again, this makes me nervous about having bi-polar disorder, having boundless energy and living in Texas.

Perhaps being forty matters in terms of how I am treated by people. I tend to dress and act like someone a decade or more younger. The number of times of that people tell me that I'm still a baby, too young to really know something, or that I'll change my mind as I get older is irritatingly large. Perhaps that will stop. Perhaps my opinion will be respected more, perhaps less. Perhaps the important thing about being forty is if you think that it is important in some manner.

Overall I feel that I know myself better than I have ever done. I feel secure in who I am, I have a good idea of my faults and some idea of some good qualities. I think I've done a better job (under the circumstances) than most people in working out what is going on and how to live. I look around and people's lives seem so frantic, so anxious, so filled with drama. At forty I think I'm doing OK.

At the moment my focus is on exercise, music, and going back to meditation to help me appreciate where I am.