Life Begins at… 42?
In which the Covid-19 pandemic continues to mess with my best laid plans.
In the lead up to my 40th birthday, I took the phrase ‘life begins at 40’ a little too seriously. I had the idea I would use this milestone to improve my life in all sorts of ways. From little changes I’d been putting off for ages, to major life decisions. Suddenly in a big bang I was going to change everything, and start my forties as a new man. Kinder, greener, healthier. Fitter, happier, more productive (that song was a self help manual of sorts, yeah?). If I tell you my 40th birthday was in March 2020, this should give you a clue how well my plan went.
To be fair, the first two days of being 40 were pretty good. Then, on the third day, my wife and I went on a rare overnight trip without the kids and I became really quite ill. I spent the night feverish in our hotel bed, instead of enjoying a romantic evening in a nice restaurant. I recovered quickly, but the wider world went rapidly downhill. Any thoughts of self improvement, of major or minor life changes, went swiftly out the window as life became all about getting through the pandemic as best we could.
Fast forward 2 years to March 2022 and I hadn’t learnt a thing. I had another significant birthday on the horizon (admittedly 42 isn’t a significant birthday for most people, but for Douglas Adams fans it is) and again was thinking about all the ways in which I could improve my life. Exercise more regularly, eat better, give more to charity. Read more, write more, mess about on my phone less.
To be fair, it genuinely felt as if life had entered a new phase. We were coming out of the pandemic (if you completely ignored the fact it was very clearly still going on). My youngest child had started school, which still felt strange. No children at home during the day for 5 days a week! Also, because we were lucky enough to keep our jobs during the pandemic, and not able to spend much money during large parts of it, we were able to pay off a large chunk of debt that had been hanging over us for years. Life did suddenly seem a little freer, more full of possibility.
So, did life begin at 42, rather than 40? Of course not. In March 2022 I got Covid for (officially) the first time (that March 2020 illness was so early that I’ll never know whether it was Covid or not). I’ve spent most of my age 42 year ill, tired or both, and am still coughing and wheezing away to this day. Fate is reminding me that life doesn’t begin at 40, or 42, or any other age, it just trundles along, only partially in our control.
In retrospect, it should have been obvious that you don’t wait until a particular date to make life changes, you just do it. This is the exact reason that New Year’s resolutions never work. You don’t suddenly become a new person when the clock ticks over to midnight, or another digit gets added to your age. When I realised I no longer wanted to eat meat, I just stopped, and when I realised I actually didn’t want to consume any animal products at all, I just stopped that too. I didn’t wait for some arbitrary date.
I’m not going to stop trying to change, or to learn, or to become a better person. But I’m also not going to try to do everything at once, nor save my changes for a particular date, nor berate myself for not being some mythical best version of myself.
Life has begun already. I’m going to try and appreciate it.
