I’m turning 40.
I remember when my dad turned 40. Mom threw him a big surprise party. Everyone was there. There’s this picture of him talking to people, holding a joke cane. That party was more than 25 years ago now.
This week, my students put up black balloons in the classroom and wrote “Happy Birthday, Old Man!” on the board.
But 40 is only old to young people. It seems far less old when you reach it. Sure, I can tell I’m not as young as I used to be. I refer to twenty-somethings as kids. Certain dreams that loomed large in my youth seem less important now. (It’s hard to tell how much of that is age and how much of that is being a father to three kids.)
Life changes you. Responsibility changes you. Age tempers the indestructibility and boundless optimism of youth, which is probably as it should be.
But, really, I still feel young. I can’t fit into the hide-and-seek spots I could as a child, and playing on the McDonald’s playset is generally frowned upon (unless, of course, your youngest gets stuck). But I still get excited by a good piece of music. I still endlessly discuss and rave about certain books. I daydream about adventures, even if it’s moved from Nerf wars to geocaching. I still have dance parties in my living room–now with my kids.
It’s easy to navel-gaze and wonder whether you wasted your life. Did I take advantage of my life before kids? Will I ever actually publish those mostly finished novels? What did I actually do with the past 20 years? (All simply hypothetical questions that someone like me might have asked himself over the last couple years. Hypothetically.)
These are dangerous questions, because most times they are unanswerable questions, questions with the sole purpose of making a person miserable. How is it possible not to waste your life in such a state of min?. There is always some other choice you could have made, some more work you could have put in, some imaginary goal you could have achieved.
We all age. And yet, I think some people stay young as well. Deep relationships, endless curiosity, true thanksgiving, and purposeful activity work wonders in keeping the mind and spirit young. God’s mercies are new every morning. Gaze upon them, thank him for them, work them out in your life. Outwardly we are wasting away, but inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
That inner renewal, however God works that out in each of our lives, should be our true concern, not the number on the birthday card.
I’ve always believed (even when I despaired) that the best age is the one I am, that God makes everything good in its time. Our happiness is not rooted in checked-off bucket lists or impressive resumes, though it’s so natural for us to think so. Rather, it is in our communion with and the revelation of God and his Son Jesus Christ in our lives.
I just need to remind myself of that next time my mid-life crisis flares up.
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Story Connection – Once, I tried my hand at a story chronicling how an author’s stage of life influenced his fiction. Read it here: “The Stories of My Life”