I turned forty a couple of months ago.
Just reading that is surreal. Forty years.
Joder. Putain. Scheiß.
In my twenties and thirties, anyone I spoke to who’d already completed their fortieth lap was adamant it wasn’t a big deal. They felt the same: just another day, just another number.
But that hasn’t been my experience.
I wish someone had been more forthright about their personal drama, trauma, pain, existential dread, and heuristic learning when I was twenty-three in Cambodia or thirty-three in Colombia.
If you know anyone who’s recently crossed the XL border and claims it was no big deal, you might want to check in on them anyway. And if you’re in the twilight of your thirties with the milestone in sight, be afraid.
Be very afraid.
I am kidding, of course. (Sort of)
But now that I’m forty , I’ve had a few realizations and quasi-epiphanies I’d like to share with my small readership.
For added authenticity, my knee is screaming obscenities at me as I type. So, if I come across as brash, vulgar, and bad-tempered in this essay, dear reader, please remember that my qualm isn’t with you — it’s with God.
It’s Okay to Have Feelings about Turning Forty
There’s no shame in feeling anxious about the upcoming (or freshly minted) four. oh. (no!)
The emotions have a range, but they typically circle fear, disappointment, apprehension and (in the worst cases) regret, shame, anger, and resentment. You may have heard someone express excitement for their milestone, but they were probably just fucking with you. It’s momentous, yes. But you don’t get giddy crossing the Rubicon. You hold your breath and say a prayer.
You’re no longer a boy or a girl to your friends, family, and strangers.
You’re a forty-year-old man or woman. Whether you like it or not.
You know what I’m talking about. Pour yourself a glass of wine.
You will have feelings about turning forty, and that’s okay. It will likely be a mix of good and bad (but don’t be surprised if the bad feelings bully the good feelings and steal their lunch money). No need to be embarrassed about anything, suppress your thoughts, or make anyone feel ashamed of theirs.
It’s normal. Why do you think so many — and I do mean many — writers have explored this issue? There’s a ton of solid comedy about it, too. Why the raft of storylines in movies? Why the endless carousel of midlife crises?
Turning forty is a rite of passage (albeit a symbolic one) and rites of passage have mattered to every culture in history. It’s not always about pomp and ceremony, but you would understand if someone wanted to talk about losing their virginity or graduating from college or having their first child. Or their first threesome. How about a purple heart, a sold-out crowd, or a perfect game?
Or turning forty.
It’s a big one.
Your youth is over. Officially.
It’s over.
The person you were twenty years ago is gone.
Forever.
Hueputa.
Like I said, it’s okay to have feelings about it.
Turning Forty is Painful and Unequivocally Sucks
Let me be as unambiguous as possible: being forty sucks.
It stinks. It blows chunks.
Everybody knows that the machinery starts to break, but no one prepares you for how insidious it is, how chaotic, and the toll it can take. I wish someone had told me, oh how I wish I knew: it’s much worse than they said because it’s happening to you.
I learned about the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns in high school English class. Yet into my thirties (!) I played hooky with the truth — shielded from the finality of death by the naïveté of youth. Like many others, I reached adulthood without being any wiser, still oblivious to the nothingness beyond the upcoming event horizon.
When I was young seeing someone holding a book with outstretched arms just so they could read the words was a funny sight. So was grunting with pain and walking slowly — weak knees, tweaked backs, wrinkles, white hairs, and waking up to pee in the middle of the night. But one by one, the problems accrete, the symptoms show up like system files. Like apps you can remove from the home screen, but can never delete.
But it’s not so funny when you have colitis. Or is it the reflux or dermatitis? How are your bowels, then, are they moving? Is your hearing or eyesight improving?
How’s that ‘young mentality’?
Ready for a steely stare at your mortality?
Everyone’s name goes into life’s grand Fuck You Lottery. There are no exceptions to entry. No draft dodgers. No ejections. No conscientious objection. Everyone’s name gets picked. Some are called at birth, some in their teens, but the lucky dodge the early robbery. Then, at forty, the first call comes. Because no one escapes the cautery.
It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’re up to, or what you’ve done — nor does the size of your carbon footprint, ego, heart, or cybergun. Maybe you’re in the throes of a successful career, raising a family, cooking dinner with cinnamon spice. Or perhaps you’re in a chez lounge in the dark, smoking a blunt and planning a heist. Maybe you’re happy or sad, full of ennui and feeling blah. Life could be fast and exciting or perhaps just comme ci, comme ça.
Then one fine day, they call to say, “Hello, Shayan. Fuck you.”
Mein Gott. Dios mio. Mon putain de Dieu.
Demanding immediate changes out of the blue.
That thing you loved to eat? Fuck you.
Those things you loved to do? Fuck you.
Want to take the stairs two at a time? Fuck you.
Want to sleep through the whole night? Fuck you.
It’s different after forty. Pain isn’t relieved; it’s managed. Aches aren’t released; they’re dulled. Diseases aren’t cured; they’re treated — until more and more options get culled.
I don’t know if I’ll see the next chequered flag, but I’m grateful I got here. Let’s see if me and my shitty knee will make it to see next year.
The Best Things in Life Start after Forty
Tawdry, I know — almost like a forty-year-old wrote it.
But it’s true. Turning forty is awful, and yet this is also when life can become most incredible.
In the wake of grieving for my younger self, something has happened: I have finally understood a raft of things that I first learned years ago. Forty is the symbolic and approximate age for this phenomenon, but it can just as easily happen at thirty-two or fifty-nine. A school of thought even has forty-two as the most accurate approximation, but we don’t have to get into that because it doesn’t matter. The struggle is real, even if the numbers are made up. Their significance is fabricated only to act as our anchors in the Great Ocean of Events.
For me, it happened at forty, but not necessarily on the day. I had a birthday party in November with some close friends who had flown to meet me in northern Colombia. The event was punctuated by my fortieth birthday, but it was a week of debauchery — unbridled and unadulterated — the likes of which most readers haven’t experienced but can imagine.
Then, after a few more weeks of honeymooning with my partner in the afterglow of the extravagant saturnalia, something happened. I turned the consequential corner to reach forty and have felt the changes already.
Forty’s when the physical signs have begun to sprout. Evidence that the cumulative effect of my youthful indulgences — my catalog of bad decisions and portfolio of pet mistakes — will indeed have consequences.
But here’s the thing: it’s not only the physical stuff, but mental things. And those aren’t all that bad.
Things I’ve known for a while but have never truly believed have taken on new meaning. Thoughts, ideas, desires, and motivations I’ve indistinctly had for years, but have never really acted on, suddenly feel inspiring.
Similar to the physical symptoms that show up uninvited — like Louis C.K.’s “shitty ankle” — a series of mental concepts also, for lack of a better word, finish installing after forty.
I consumed a lot of philosophy in my twenties, and every time I read something profound, I would buzz with excitement and blather endlessly to anyone who would listen (or get cornered at a party) about concepts I hadn’t fully understood. But the ideas felt right and made sense in a way I didn’t grasp but knew instinctively to be true.
Life unfolded and things started to make sense as I navigated and experienced my environment. From parents, teachers, friends, thinkers, conversations, nature, psychedelics, accidents, accomplishments, travel, tragedy, love, heartbreak, and Hollywood — I gathered the facts. But not all of the facts, and not on everything, and not at the same time, and not fast enough.
The program that tells you not to touch a hot stove loads very quickly. But concepts of love and war, life and death, art, reality, God, friendship, and the universe take longer. Sometimes, much longer.
But around forty, the good chickens also come home to roost.
Imagine walking along the road when you see something fluttering high above.
Sitting on a nearby rock to observe it for a few minutes, you see it’s a hundred-dollar bill falling from the sky, twirling as it climbs down an invisible ladder. You stand up excitedly and look around; there’s no one in sight save for a royal merchant heading back to the village from the castle.
He’s an old man, he won’t give you any trouble.
You look up again, and yes — indeed! — there is a hundred-dollar bill falling in your direction. You’ve never had a hundred dollars before. It would go well with the three currently in your pocket. Hardly able to believe your luck, you position yourself under the falling money, which is in the path of the old merchant passing through.
As he gets closer, you notice he’s selling the finest wines, meats, cheeses, and breads you’ve ever seen. You look up, the money is coming, and you’re suddenly hungry. “Hello sir, how much for a bottle of wine, slice of cheese, leg of lamb, and loaf of bread?”
The merchant looks at you with surprise, probably because your order doesn’t match your rags, but he doesn’t speak while he calculates. “Thirty-three dollars,” he finally says.
“Perfect!” you exclaim. “Here is three,” you show the merchant your only three dollars, carefully folded in an envelope, “and the rest is on its way,” you point up at the falling hundred-dollar bill, “give me the food now, and I’ll give you the thirty when that bill falls into my hand.”
The merchant looks up at the money and laughs, “Ha! Ha! You expect me to sit here and wait till nightfall for that damned thing to fall?”
“Don’t be a fool!” you protest. “Look! It’s coming. It will be here in no time.”
The merchant, who looked like no fool, said, “I’m no fool. It will be dark before that gets here. You’ll be hungry and alone. It will be cold. There are coyotes and bandits. I wouldn’t risk it.”
“Pfft!” You say, “I can fend off my desire to eat until sunrise if I have to. It’s not freezing, so I’ll brave the discomfort of the cold. I’ll scare away the coyotes; I’ll hide from the bandits. Give me the food now, and I’ll come find you tomorrow to pay.”
“HA! HA!” Laughs the merchant, louder this time, like he really means it. “Here, I will give you a half loaf of bread for three dollars. Not because that is the price, because I am feeling generous.”
Offended and indignant — the way someone with a hundred dollars might feel in such a situation — you send the merchant on his way and curse after him. Then you look up at the money, which doesn’t seem to have moved much, and then at your watch.
What Happens Next is Up to You
They say life is downhill after forty, but that’s not true.
When you get there, you realize it’s more of a plateau rife with opportunities for pleasure, progress, mischief, and mayhem.
This is where you’ll die — on the plateau — where the world’s biggest dreams and fears unfold in equal measure.
Your organs will fail you, the hazards will get you, or someone will snuff out your light. But you’re still in Wonderland till then, and there’s a whole world to play with, so what’s the plan tonight?