I am still trying to find the positive side of being 40. As I mentioned earlier, with a bit over two months to go till the dreaded day I am trying to convince myself that there must be a lengthy list of things I should love about reaching this milestone.
Trying to find some stimulation from those who’ve “been there – done that”, I bumped into something Victor Hugo (yes, the French poet) wrote once upon a time:
“Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age”
I have a bit of a problem with this quote. First, he mentions the phrase “old age” not once but TWICE in a sentence of only 13 words. OK, to be fair, he also mentions the word “youth” twice, but that’s not the point: by the time you read that forty has something to do with “old age” everything else becomes a blur!
Then, he does not give me anything to look forward to. Being the oldest of the young is pretty much the same as telling me I am the thinnest of the fat or the smartest of the dumb and that I will eventually become the fattest of the thin and the dumbest of the smart!
Even worse, it makes me start thinking that turning 50 is only a decade away! And 10 years is nothing – I know it, believe me, I am still recovering from the hangover of the big bash I threw when I turned 30.
Fifty is the “youth of old age”. That’s it. You reach 50 and you are doomed. Even a poet with all the inspiration that Victor Hugo obviously had, could not come with a better way to put it.
So the only positive thought I have from all this is that: I should love being 40 because I am NOT 50 yet!
And 40 is not 30 either … more on that coming soon.
#1 by dr2000 on December 10, 2008 - 1:42 pm
I love being 40 because I love myself. I love every day of my life, with goods or bads, with smiles or tears. It doesn’t matter what age you have: there are people who are tired to live at 20.