I guess no one of us really sees age coming until he has us in his clutch. My 40s caught me entirely by surprise. I thought I would be 30 forever. I thought I was 30 for years before I was 30, since my childhood, really, when I was continually horrified by the indignities of childhood. So since I was basically always 30, I found turning 30 to be quite a relief – like, finally, I am the age I’ve always felt myself to be. And all the numbers following thirty were still just thirty, just varieties of 30. But forty! My god I was not prepared. Not at all.
And now I am confronted with all the things that start to happen with age – medical tests that seemed so far in the future, a cloak of invisibility on the street, the way I don’t look my age in the exact reverse I used to get in my teens. I used to look older, now I look younger.
And even though I am likely to be in the exact middle of my life, I start to consider the end in a way that I never did before. I have a tab open on my browser to remind me to write a will. So…yeah. Age suddenly has me in his clutch. He will likely be my constant companion now for the second half of my life.
The Hamlet Project 