My good friend Sandra (who turns 42 on the 24th of December) rang last Thursday night from England, and she couldn't quite believe I was about to turn 40.
I told her I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it yet, but it was definitely something I was facing with a certain degree of trepidation.
"I know! You just think to yourself, this is my life. It's half way over! This is it; I've already had half the life I'm going to get. I can understand why people have mid-life crises and go out and buy a flash little sportscar or something. You feel it just might be your last chance."
So yesterday morning, while seated eating breakfast overlooking a misty Karioitahi Bay, while the Other Harf sat across from me industriously eating his scrambled eggs and toast and hashbrowns and fried mushrooms and grilled tomato (it was a buffet breakfast, so the OH took full advantage), I had this overwhelming wave of melancholy settle over me.
Was this it? Were all the good times over? Had I had all the very best fun and amazing experiences that I was ever going to have in my teens and twenties and thirties?
Was my quota up?
It was a feeling that I couldn't quite shake all day, but then, that evening, as I sat in the same restaurant eating a lovely birthday dinner, the Other Harf asked me what was the best experience of my past 40 years.
That was easy.
It was meeting him, which just made all the happiness I have now possible. And I have a lot.
And all things going well, I'll get another 40 years.
And the melancholy floated away.
I told her I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it yet, but it was definitely something I was facing with a certain degree of trepidation.
"I know! You just think to yourself, this is my life. It's half way over! This is it; I've already had half the life I'm going to get. I can understand why people have mid-life crises and go out and buy a flash little sportscar or something. You feel it just might be your last chance."
So yesterday morning, while seated eating breakfast overlooking a misty Karioitahi Bay, while the Other Harf sat across from me industriously eating his scrambled eggs and toast and hashbrowns and fried mushrooms and grilled tomato (it was a buffet breakfast, so the OH took full advantage), I had this overwhelming wave of melancholy settle over me.
Was this it? Were all the good times over? Had I had all the very best fun and amazing experiences that I was ever going to have in my teens and twenties and thirties?
Was my quota up?
It was a feeling that I couldn't quite shake all day, but then, that evening, as I sat in the same restaurant eating a lovely birthday dinner, the Other Harf asked me what was the best experience of my past 40 years.
That was easy.
It was meeting him, which just made all the happiness I have now possible. And I have a lot.
And all things going well, I'll get another 40 years.
And the melancholy floated away.
