40 is fuck all. It might appear as a threshold of sorts, but it’s a construct of our own making.
What could create this? Fertility dropping, a slight shift in your hair density &/or pigmentation, realising that if you were a bag of weed you’d probably already be looking to re-up (as a friend once put it)? So what. Exercise, try & eat as well as you can, self care really, it’s only a loss if you make it one. By 40 you’ve probably (hopefully) found the 3 or 4 things you’re hot on & that genuinely further your being. Could you say that as a younger person? Not categorically.
Time & tide frameworks are true, but so is evolving change. I hate pubs & avoid alcohol entirely these days, but as a yoot they were the fabric of every location ever lived in. Do I miss them? Yes/no. Is it shit when old haunts morph into a Tesco? Kinda. My deceased Dad would turn in his grave at that last statement. Pubs were a huge part of his life blood, but they aren’t the social networks they used to be. Fuckin Weatherspoons? Fuck off, if it’s going to be a pub then make it so there’s a decent pint of Guinness at room temperature, a reheated pie of dubious provenance & the time to drink myself into a stupor. Except that’s boring, untethered & usually involved violence.
Experienced knowing is better than scrambling round in the dark making mistakes, but that knowledge only evolves from repeated mistakes in the first instance. Take my wife (please) for instance. Could I have handled her at 25? That would’ve been brutal. Way too much honesty for a drug casualty & she would’ve dumped me pronto. Just wish I’d met her sooner. Do I miss drugs? God no. That brain crumbling out of your ears on Tues/Weds blue prison of headfuck, you can only really indulge it psychologically & psychologically as a younger person. It was fun while it lasted though. Just glad to have got this far when better people than myself are no longer here. People you’d actually want to go on a pub crawl with. A wise man once told me 45-60 is when it really gets weird on that front with people checking out all too frequently & he was right.
Do what you love, love those closest to you unconditionally & try & accept every day is a blessing. Didn’t really think that last bit through, but there you are now. Excuse the dribble.