The Big Four-Zero

I just turned forty. Revealing this fact means that anyone reading this who is less than thirty has now mentally filed me under "aged, boring tosser". (To which I am forced to reply "fuck you!") I would have thought that this particular transition would have been more traumatic. After all, once you pass forty you are, to all intents and purposes, dead, right? I think I realised this in advance, when I got to thirty eight, which is why that was such a depressing birthday. But so far I feel great. That is to say, I feel no worse than before.

Tomorrow I play my first 6-a-side soccer game as a forty year-old, but I couldn't play any worse than last week when I was a jetlagged thirty-something, so that will be OK. The real test will be whether I now attain any measurable degree of maturity. I remember when my dad was forty - he was grown-up, mature and sensible (and had been for about fifteen years, as far as I could tell). I can fake it, of course, for business reasons, but it's hardly my natural state. Or is it? I mean, I don't snort coke, drive a Ferrari, live in a converted loft, shag twenty year-old girls or have amusing tattoos on my penis. I live in a sensible house, have a good job, save money, drive safely and even occasionally play golf. Fuck me! I am a boring old fart!

Now I understand why people have mid-life crises. They wake up one day and realize that they are sensible. They made good choices, sacrificed short-term gratification for long term stability, married a good partner, raised nice kids and started worrying about how their lawn looked. They are dead inside and something suddenly makes them realize it.

I don't feel especially dead inside, but objectively speaking I'm pretty sensible. The trouble is I don't feel the urge to go out and have the typical mid-life crisis. Or at least not yet. That's not to say I don't want to shag twenty year-old girls, mind you. This is a perfectly natural state for any rational heterosexual male, of any age, and one that for some reason certain women find hard to understand. When you get married it's not like you get a switch turned off in your head (or dick) that stops you finding other girls attractive. Wanting to shag other women is a given. The only good options are a) choosing not to, b) not getting caught, or c) not getting married. (I'm sure there are other possibilities, involving wife-swaps, open relationships and orgies, but I think we already established that I'm a sensible forty year-old dull bastard, didn't we?)

I still might buy a second-hand Porsche but I'm not planning to get a motorbike (or "mobile organ donor unit" as my anaesthetist brother refers to them). My one resolution, made when I was six months younger, is to go to the local comedy club on open-mike night and try stand-up. This I fully expect will be so pants-shittingly humbling that I'll probably be more than happy to return to suburbia and tend to my sad fucking lawn, never to re-emerge.

I suppose the worst part about turning forty is that at some point I'll have to get a prostate exam. Being violated like a glove puppet by a portly physician in latex gloves while bent over the end of his table should be enough to make anyone want to turn their life around. I think I'll put that particular delight off for a bit - after all, I'm not that old, am I?


Copyright 2007 Edward Bison