1. You find yourself repeating things your parents used to tell you
2. Pop music is not as good as it used to be (see 1)
3. You haven’t listened to Radio 1 in years and now switch between club classics on Heart, Absolute Radio (sometimes even Radio 4)
4. You don’t feel like “a grown-up” and wonder when/if you ever will
5. You get excited mid-week about the next episode of (insert reality TV show here)
6. Politics has become important to you and friend’s opinions actually matter (and sometimes hurt)
7. The people you idolised as a kid are now either very old or dead
8. You find people under the age of 25 annoying
9. A nightclub is somewhere you might go once a year, if at all
10. Your weekends are mostly food and wine at home in front of the TV
11. A walk in the park, bike ride or visiting a museum is an exciting day out
12. A Sunday roast is a must and when you don’t have one, you miss it
13. You’d rather go out for a meal than go to the pub14. Your army of acquaintances is down to a handful of trusted friends
15. Everything aches
16. You tend to put on weight a lot easier and it’s harder to work it off
17. You worry about everything including your own death and the death of those close to you18. You actually look at the fat and sugar contents on food packets
19. You can’t go to bed until you’ve reached your daily 10,000 steps
20. You have a place where everything belongs, usually one of the many “junk drawers”
21. Your short-term memory is terrible and often leave a room forgetting why you did
22. You pre-wash the plates before putting them into the dishwasher
23. You still love computer games and worry that you’re too old to play them
24. You prefer the theatre to the cinema
25. You don’t worry about money as much but wish you had more time to enjoy it
The one I’m not listing here, although it is probably the first thing we all think about when approaching this milestone, is an existential question:
40. Middle age? Is that really the half-way marker of my life? There are more people celebrating their 100th birthday now, but what’s the average life expectancy these days? (Quick google search…) 80.96 years? This really is half then! Have I done enough? Have I achieved everything I wanted to? Do I still have enough time to do the things I missed? That first 40 years seemed to disappear fast, will the next 40 do the same?
If this sounds familiar, I know plenty of people over 40/50/60 who are doing great. Changes in life happen all the time and sometimes unexpectedly. Just live the next 40 years the way you want to live them. We may not feel “old” but we are a lot more mature and see things a lot clearer now. (There is something to this “life experience” people waffled on at us when we were younger.) And with modern medicine, hair dyes and plastic surgery, we can stay younger for longer, so don’t worry about it and enjoy your birthday!
Love it so true 🤣🤣🤣