Life Begins

‘I’ll be down soon love.’

The wife wondering how long it takes a forty year old man to get ready for a party. It takes longer every time, if the truth be known. Forty today, woopy fucking doo. Why is it people want to celebrate becoming forty? Twenty, that’s something to celebrate, not bloody forty.

Life, it has been said, begins at forty. Who the fuck came up with that one? Someone who turned forty that’s who, obviously I know that much. Someone woke up one morning, realised they were getting old, and decided to make themselve feel better about it. Whomever it was declared that turning forty, instead of being just another fucking day, it would be from now on, the day your life begins.

Well I suppose they had a point, turning grey, being slightly impotent, wrinkly and over the hill with love handles that wont shift no matter what exercise is thrown at them, isn’t the best.

From the day of your fortieth birthday onwards, life will be an endless round of parties, hilarity and general good times. As fucking if.

Obviously this rule was made before having a mortgage was normal, or before having kids in your thirties days. Because my friend, if it was made up after such a fucking time then it was invented by someone with way too much money, and way too much time to spare.

I mean, look at yourself. Take a good honest look. Youthfulness left home a long while ago, and believe me, he aint coming back. No fucking wonder the biggest growing market today is plastic surgery, followed a close second by male grooming products. Anti-wrinkle creams would have to be miraculous for the bags under my eyes, look at them, they are now fucking fully fledged suitcases for crying out loud. As for the wrinkles, well they can’t possibly be passed of as laughter lines any more. The fucking laughter stopped a long time ago. Worry lines maybe, but laughter lines, somehow, I doubt it.

Why is it we can’t seem accept growing old gracefully? Are we afraid of something? Are we jealous of a generation below us, when we, the older states-people have had our day and in reality should be leaving the all night partying to people who can actually handle it?

Take tonight, I’ll have a few drinks, probably get a little more than merry, and it will take at least two days to recover from the hangover. A hangover I may add, that at one time I could swat to the side like a fly hovering over a salad, and continue with whatever party came along the next day. Now, sadly I’ll lie in bed complaining that there must have been something wrong with the potato salad. Self denial, it’s a powerful thing. Pretending to other people is normal, part of every day life, but when you start to actually believe your own lies, then you know its time to give up and admit defeat.

Defeat might be a tad too strong. You’re not really defeated, more like, you just need to admit that you need more time to recover, more time for the body to get back into a state that allows you to function without feeling sick or sore.

No, we think we can prolong a generation, stretch out hedonistic times, when all the time the only thing we should be stretching are waistlines. We should be content to sit back and enjoy longer rest periods.

Jogging! Need I say more? How degrading is it watching a forty year old, who took a twenty year abstention from exercise suddenly decide that a pair of ‘Nike’ trainers, a head band, silky shorts and a heart monitor can turn back a clock that has no intention of turning? Gyms throughout the land take money, good fucking money I may add, weekly from people who would be better off investing the same money in an allotment for fuck sake, or they could just as easily burn fifty pound cash every week. It equates to the same fucking outcome, money down the fucking drain. Casualty departments in hospitals are visited every day by men dressed like something from a catalogue sports page clutching their chests, and complaining about heart attacks caused by trying to run the equivalent of the London marathon. When what they should have been doing is sitting at home watching Sky Sports or the fucking Simpson’s with a can of beer and a packet of family size crisps at their side.

‘I’m coming love.’

I think she worries more about me being forty than I do.

I’d better get ready, she put a lot of effort into things. There is a buffet that could feed a third world country for a week, enough drink to fill a lake, and a new dress that she will never allow me to know the cost of, the lot, she really pushed the boat out this time. Perhaps she is afraid, after all, we are the same age, and if I’m getting on a bit then she is also.

She still looks great, but she’s more used to grooming products than me. Fuck it, I’ll just gracefully go grey. Distinguished looking, and happy.

I really need to do something with my weight though or I’ll have to buy a whole new bloody wardrobe for fuck sake. Cut out the midweek boozing, and do some walking. I vow to never become a beetroot jogger, no matter how fucking fat I get. I’d preffer to stick knitting needles in my eyes.

Right, are you ready to face the public?

Forty, its only fucking half time ... I hope. It’s nothing to worry about, though I doubt I’ll agree that it something I should be fucking celebrating.

Does my bum look big in these jeans?