You don’t frighten me, 40. You don’t give me the shivers. Don’t make me quake in my boots. Lament the years gone by, or the things I haven’t done. When I hear your name, I don’t think about how quickly time is passing, or those little stripes of gray in my hair that I used to blame on sloppy painting.
No, 40, you don’t scare me.
But 39? Yeah, for some reason, I fear you. You shiver me right out of my boots. Make me want to go look up the word “lament” and see what it means. (Is it like something that needs ointment? Or a liver ailment from overeating cheese?) When I hear your name — thir-ty-nine! Pum-pum-pum-PUM! — I want to bear hug the time that is quickly slipping by. And the gray hair? No, man, that’s just paint streaks.
I was painting my house, OK!
Problem is, I turn 39 next week, not 40. And that has me a little jumbled.
I can’t quite explain it, but I would be fine with the big 4-0. There’s something regal and even elegant about the age. It’s the beginning of a new decade, not the end. You’re the baby of the 40s bunch, not the old man in the 30s crowd.
“Tell us, pops, what was it like before there was electricity?” my younger 30-ites ask me. They all laugh and offer to get my walker.
I mutter something like, “Gosh darn whippersnappers,” and then demand that someone to find me my newspaper and get me a hot water with lemon in it.
Truth is I don’t feel any older. In fact, I feel a whole lot younger. Best I’ve felt in years. I ran a race that was only 9 seconds off my fastest time. (Granted, that fastest time was in college, and I was probably weighed down by beer and ramen noodles, but still …).
I’ve dropped a pants size — most of my comrades are going the opposite direction, it should be noted — and I have finally developed the confidence to make customer service representatives fear me on the phone. That is the equivalent of killing your first bear in caveman times.
All is pretty good in the world when I think about it like that. Only, I’m not. I’m just thinking about this 39 thing, and I don’t like it. I can’t figure out why.
Maybe because it sounds like a warning sign on some dangerous mountain road: “Last chance to grow up.” Is that it? Do I see it as a turning point? The final stop before proper adulthood overtakes me? When I’ll be drawn to power ties and conversations about term life insurance. (Hey, maybe I’ll finally understand what that means!)
It’s like the nether regions age. A rest station before you cross over into the great unknown. That there is no turning back. When you finally realize that stupid Steve Miller song had it right: “Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin into the future”? I HATE that song!
Ahh, hullabaloo! (It’s a thing 39-year-olds like to say. I looked it up.) I’ve had 39 years to grow up and it hasn’t happened yet. What makes me think it’s going to start this year? What makes me think it’s going to be any different next week than the last?
I think it’s time to embrace this year. Get excited about it. Celebrate this final lap in my 30s before I happily move on into the 40s. How bad could it be?
Besides, I can out-race most of those young 30-snappers anyway. And if I can’t beat them and their bulging bellies … well, I’ll just beat them with my walker.