Things I like about being 41

I’ve been feeling really blessed these days. There are lots of things I like about my 40s so far.

• Having kids who are transitioning to new stages of maturity. Old enough to talk with but not old enough to not need us.
• Enjoying the type of relationship you can’t have unless you’ve been married almost a couple of decades with somebody.
• Feeling old enough to have matured some, but not old enough to quit.
• Most everything still works, plus or minus a few hair follicles.
• Felling like I know what I’m good at, and being okay with the things that aren’t on the list.
• Sitting with 20-year-olds and realizing that I’m not facing their pressures. Also – remembering a world (without cell-phone texting and 24/7 connections to the Internet) that they have never known.

Things I don’t like about being 40:

• Thinking that 80 isn’t so old after all.
• Counting down (25 years to go) rather than up (I’ve been at this for 10 years).
• Being shocked when I meet people who are in important positions who were born in the 1980s (soon to be 1990s).
• Not realizing how old I really am until someone asks me if I have a kid in university.

Last night, a Kenyan friend told me how back home they would brag about age. It’s not something to hide; it’s something to celebrate. He said he can’t wait to get gray hair. Me, I’d just settle for hair.

I think we need to recover that view of aging. But you’d expect that from someone who now really gets the statement, “Youth is wasted on the young.” Wouldn’t you?