A combination of catching up with an old friend at the weekend and blog posts by McNalu and ExpatPaul got me thinking of the stage of life I’m at. Don’t worry this won’t be too long or maudlin. :)
Whilst catching up with an old friend he was saying how he’d seen another mutual friend recently. When we were all in our teens and 20s were all party types; out all weekend and during the week too. Staying up late & being irresponsible and basically having an awful lot of fun. However Old Friend and I have ended up getting married, becoming parents, getting mortgages and proper jobs whilst Mutual Friend still lives the same lifestyle from his 20s, 15 to 20 years on. Old Friend and I love him for it but at their recent catch up Mutual Friend was very defensive of his lifestyle and was unnecessarily justifying himself. The whole conversation made me realise how comfortable I am with where I am at life. I don’t feel old and don’t resent younger folks at all. But also don’t want to live that life any more either. Oddly turning 30 made me think “Oh no I’m old” but turning 40 was great and didn’t bring me any hang-ups at all. In general I think this can be seen as 30th birthday parties aren’t usually big affairs whereas 40th ones are.
One thing I did notice is I am a lot less likely to be verbal about my beliefs or how I think life should be lived but am a lot more likely to act on those beliefs than I was when I was younger. Infact in the my 20s it was probably the opposite in that I’d have blathered on about what I believed but probably not acted in the corresponding way. A couple of examples are self-sufficiency and supporting small businesses or cooperatives.
So what’s the point of all this? I guess it is: I’m very comfortable with this stage of my life and believe acting on your convictions is better than talking about them.
Oh and to McNalu my mrs has been plucking stray eyebrows from me for years now and random old man hairs from my ears. Sign of manhood is what I call it!