I turned 40 last year. I never really felt old at 30, although it was the age that most young people resented approaching, viewing it as “old.” It helped to some degree that my mom had me in her late 30s. I was still a kid when she hit 50, and that was the decade she spent my teen years in. So it was 50 that I viewed as old when I was a kid, and 30 didn’t really bother me at all. In fact, I quite enjoyed my 30s. I didn’t feel rushed or left behind. 30 still seemed quite comfortably capable of brewing and turning into something.

I’m starting to feel a little old at 40 – or at least, too old for things to begin. It feels like I should be in a stage of life where what I have has already been built firm under my feet and certain. In truth, I’ve made very few big strides in my life up until now. It seems I’ve spent the past two decades coasting, and I’m not certain how much will actually change in the next decade, because time seems to slip by, faster now, uncontrollable grains of sand running their course. It seems just as likely that the following decades can be full of the same empty hope as the previous decades.

When you’re young, you think about being the youngest to accomplish a thing. And then you hear about someone young (or your age) who did the thing, and you think you’ll be just on their heals (Eragon released when I was a teenager). And then you think you’re accomplishing things at a normal rate, other people have done the thing by your age. And then you reach an age where you reassure yourself with the tales of people that didn’t accomplish the thing until later in life (Tolkien didn’t write LoTR until he was in his 40s!). I seem to be hitting that age now. Reminding myself that things can still be done.

So I sometimes morosely feel like 40 is old. But there is also a part of me that feels like it’s not quite yet. Especially when I contemplate it from another angle. How much more life would I have to live to reach 100? 60 more years. That’s an entire life! It’s more than I’ve lived to date. My mom had me at 38, and my brother at 40, and she has been around to watch us grow into adults. There is yet a full life to live, even if I only build it starting today.

And if I build it today… 60 years down the line, when I’m 100, what has it become?

There could still be an entire life in that time. A full life.

I wonder what you do with it?

(although writing a letter to your 100 year old self seems silly, most of us won’t live that long, could get hit by a car tomorrow, which is usually my go to example but maybe a bit dark considering my boyfriend got hit by a car last year. he’s fine though.)