Fort Me

Jonathan turned 40 today, which is a good thing as I was getting lonely being there on my own...

I gave him a Trek 12oo road bike, which is not as significant as being at the cusp of another decade. It was just something I thought he would like. I'd actually thought about other gifts like a plasma TV or a dive trip to Komodo but those ideas had been leaked to him before they were executed so I had to drop them.

I thought the bike would be useful for the triathlon he's planning to compete in come July. It was also sweet. That was all. I didn't think how it must seem to someone leaving his 30s behind. ""You got me a healthy gift,'' he said. Approvingly, I hope. In any case, he was sincerely surprised when they delivered it in the morning (esp since he was still in his boxers!).

We will take the girls out to lunch at Bather's as a treat and tonight I will buy him dinner at Morton's. It'll be a quiet 40th and it will pass like any other day.

I don't remember that much about how I spent my own 40th, back in January (waaaay back). I had friends over for a meal the weekend before Jan 18. It wasn't a particularly memorable party. On the day itself, I didn't have to work. Date aside, it was just another day, an anticlimax, as it should be.

I have chafed for so long at the process of getting to 40, hating the idea of growing old. Where did the intervening years go? Thirty was the peak of life. Now I look back and I can't connect the dots anymore of how I got to be middle-aged and middle-class, married with kids and no longer in possession of a waistline.

No one can help how time slips away but not being able to do anything substantive about it doesn't make it any easier. Every now and then I wonder how it would feel to get to 50 (and 60 and 70 etc). Age creeps up and lays its chilly fingers on me. But then it occurred to me recently that it's better to get to 50 than not to! I've been ridiculous agonising over it. I'd take growing old any day over not getting the chance to...