Over the hill - Shawn Loughlin editorial

This year, my cohort turns 40. Born in 1982, the people I went to school with and many of those I grew up with are entering their mid-life. (A quick Google search offers conflicting results as to when exactly “mid-life” is, ranging from 35 to 45. I assumed it was 40, so let’s split the difference of my Google results and say that’s what it is.)

 

My fateful day is less than a month away. May 19 is my 40th birthday, but I’ve already been wishing my friends and classmates well on their special days, something I, frankly, haven’t historically gone out of my way to do over the years, but 40 is a special birthday.

 

The response I got back from one friend relayed an anecdote of a friend of his welcoming him to the back nine, a golf term for the final half of an 18-hole round, on the day of his 40th birthday. That had me thinking of a friend’s column years ago in her newspaper aimed at seniors. The column was called “The Back 40”, a farming reference, sure, but no doubt a reference to the advanced age of the prospective readers as well.

 

It’s hard to reflect on standing on the edge of turning 40. My wife will be the first to tell you that I had somewhat of a crisis when I turned 30. It was short-lived, but a crisis nonetheless. We were staying in a hotel in London, due to be in Toronto later that day to the Toronto Blue Jays game with a handful of friends and family before dinner and drinks that night. I had about an hour-long pity party in the hotel with Jess before heading to my actual party.

 

As for the game, the Jays played the New York Mets in interleague play, beating the visitors by a score of 2-0. Jess fulfilled a life-long dream of mine by putting my name on the Jumbotron during the birthday greetings. For years, when I attended games around my birthday as a kid I would hope my dad would pony up and get my name up there, but it never happened. (Side note: I tried to return the favour when Jess and I saw a World Series game in Detroit that fall around her birthday, but the World Series is, apparently, the only time display screens are controlled by Major League Baseball and not the local team.)

 

We had a great time and the next day I didn’t feel any different, other than a slight hangover that had little to do with my advanced age.

 

So, how to handle turning 40? Clearly a big birthday bash is out - at least for me it is.

 

Honestly, lately I’ve been happiest when I’m at home with Jess and Tallulah on weekends shutting the world out. (The world, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, has been kind of crappy lately, so escaping it isn’t so bad.)

 

I guess the bigger question I’ll be asking myself for the next few weeks and even going forward will be what it means to be on the other side of 40 in a philosophical sense.

 

Of course, I know that most of our readers are on that other side of 40 (and beyond), so I don’t plan to paint it as a fate worse than death, but it does feel like a milestone worthy of contemplation. This is especially true when considering where I am in life. I started late on many things, so I have a five-year wedding anniversary coming this fall in addition to my big day, and my walking-and-talking little girl will be turning two this summer. 

 

Furthermore, Jess and I were lucky enough to buy a home in 2015 (when you look at the home prices chart, that’s back when the line was way lower than it is now) and I’ve built a body of work here at The Citizen over more than 15 years that makes me very proud.

 

As I take my trip over the hill, I may need some time that morning, but I know in my heart that I don’t have reason to mope.