I’m on the countdown to 40 years old.
It’s really the first birthday where I’ve felt apprehension and a bit of fear.
“Wow, I’m starting to get old.”
I’ve lived a very privileged life and I managed to make most of my physical and life threatening choices early on so it’s been a bit of a free ride so far towards old age. But as it’s looked closer I have a deep gnawing fear attached to 40.
My dad only had a decade left alive after he turned 40. It was a sudden and catastrophic event for our family and it set our lives on quite different paths, each shaped by our response to that event.
So if I continue with that thought – if I only had a decade left what would I do?
The biggest thing to to leave something behind, some part of me and my knowledge and experience that can stay the course of time. I’ve got a few memories from my dad, stories from his life, but they’re incomplete. They’re the censored ones – the kid friendly versions. He was an extra in a movie and he had a big motorbike accident that left some hefty scars. But there’s so many questions too that never got an answer. Simple ones like why become a chef or a hats your favourite dish? Or more personal ones about him being married before – what was all that about? There’s the more practical ones that as a new dad and first in the family I had about what exactly am I supposed to do and how did you handle it?
I write a bit and have plenty of thoughts and opinions but they’re scattered, misshapen and incomplete. I’d like to tend to that – to bring some order and some wisdom together and to leave it there for my daughter and the rest of the family.
That’s for the future though. Right now I want to just write something for the next 10 days as I count down to 40.
PS: I’m scheduling the publishing of all of these posts in the 10 hours before I turn 40 because each day I didn’t finish a post – something I’d just get the idea, and then wrote it up the next day. In the end I got all out of whack and hadn’t published anything… so now it’s a countdown of posts in the hours until the big day.
Thanks
Tim
Heart | Soul | Machine 