40

Enough being coy about it. Today I turned 40.

I don't generally bother celebrating (or mourning) my birthdays, since - once past 21- they really don't matter for anything. But there are some that force you to pay attention to them. They usually end with a "0".

Ten years ago, I played around with that milestone, telling people that I was celebrating my "second annual twenty-ninth birthday". Recently I've kidded around that today I'd be turning thirty-ten (to be followed by thirty-eleven, and so on), or explaining that I'm 28... in hexadecimal.

But in fact I'm hitting "The Big Four-Oh". Thirty is somewhat traumatic, because it means you're no longer "young" (the hippie-era slogan was "don't trust anyone over 30"), but forty is officially "over the hill". Statistically speaking, it means your life is half over, perhaps more.

I don't see myself having any kind of "mid-life crisis" in conjunction with it, though. I think I did that several years ago, when - at the age of 33 - I went back to college, taking classes with people 15 years my junior and getting a degree in a completely different field from the one I studied as a youngster (Illustration, rather than Comp Sci).

I'm (more or less) comfortably back in the working world, content with my job. I have some projects in the works that could conceivably involve a career change (professional writer), but that's been true my whole adult life, flirting at various times with being a record producer, a professional gay rights activist, a multimedia web developer, etc. None of them have ever panned out, and I don't really expect them to. I'm open to something happening, but I'm pretty much OK with my lifestyle if it doesn't. Likewise, although I'm certainly open to a carnal relationship with some pretty thing half my age, I don't see it happening. Forget buying a sports car; if anything I'd be shopping for a fuel-efficient motor scooter. And you'll never catch me anywhere near a hair-transplant clinic or rug shop.

Maybe that's because this is actually a lifestyle I sort-of envisioned for myself as a kid. I didn't foresee the technology (but then, what futurist of the 1970s actually anticipated the Internet or had any clue of what computers would really be like?) but I distinctly remember one vision I had of my future. It was perhaps 30 years ago. I really liked to draw, and imagined that one day I would be a professional artist. Since I didn't drive yet, had never gotten into cars as a fetish, and the Arab oil embargo and environmental movements of the day had made me conscious of the pitfalls of automobiles, I saw myself delivering my artwork to my customers on my bicycle.

Well, here I am, with my BFA in Illustration, and riding my bike to work and elsewhere in town (weather permitting). I figured I'd have baskets on the back of my bike instead of a little rack and a messenger bag, but it's a wee bit spooky how close I was.

Later, as I became aware that I wasn't attracted to girls, and before I could consider the notion of having a relationship with a guy, I figured that I would be alone for the rest of my life. That was certainly the expectation that brought hopeless depression to my high school and college years. I did have a wonderfully enriching relationship in my 20s and early 30s, but it's behind me now, and I'm back to being a bachelor. A bit of a disappointment, but also not unpredicted.

One thing I had no clue about as a kid with the actual issue of aging. I saw it, but I didn't understand it. The notion that my body would develop a preference to turning food into fat instead of energy went over my head. The fact that my joints and teeth and so on would start to wear out and break down was unimaginable. I knew (from looking at the men in my family) that I'd eventually lose my hair, but that seemed so incredibly far removed from the thick-haired lifestyle I lived even just 15 years ago. Which makes it a little scary to contemplate how little I understand what's in store for me as I prepare to leave "middle age" for "old age".

But really all I can do is to... make do. My body is still in pretty good shape, and I'm doing what I can to keep it that way. Even though I'm "overweight", I'm still in better condition than most people my age. Some of that's due to vanity, and the lingering delusion that I need to keep myself physically attractive. Gay male culture is even more youth-obsessed than mainstream culture, after all.

But a lot of it just comes down to the fact that I like my independence. Back when I used to travel, a decade or more ago, I'd spend a lot of my time just walking the streets of London or Chicago or Vienna or Puerto Vallarta. A few years ago when I finally managed a vacation out of town again, I went backpacking on Isle Royale. Granted, I did some serious damage to my knee on that trip, but that's because I wasn't content to just hike the trails; I was balancing on a log pumping water from a lake for drinking, and made a wild leap for the shore when it shifted and I lost my balance. My gymnastics tore some cartilege. But I got it fixed and now I'm planning another backpacking trip for this summer, probably going to the mildly challenging wilds of North Manitou Island, but maybe returning to Isle Royale. The prospect of not being able to just go wherever I please is enough to keep me walking and biking, hopefully for the next couple decades or more.

Lately I have had a bit of a preview of Things To Come as I age. My grandmother recently died after a lingering decline in her physical and neurological health, at the age of 92. Her half-sister - who has lived her whole life with physical disabilities - is now going through a similar process, giving up her independence for "assisted living" care. My own parents are still in pretty good health, but I'm starting to see them as "old". Even my workaholic father is retired now. Another 25 years, and that'll be me, and another 25 after that I may be in Grandma's slippers.

But it took me a long time to get where I am, and that'll still be a long time to get to those places. In the meantime, I've got things to do and places to go.