Life begins at ... nah who am I kidding? My 40th birthday didn’t so much creep up on me this week as much as it slapped me in the face.
Truth be told, I’ve been forty-ing for a while. Bond repayments, car instalments, medical aid, school fees, serving on a school governing body, completing a varsity degree at 39 there’s just no let up on the adulting.
But as the milestone edged closer I began realising that things I did quite easily a decade or so ago were becoming harder. The reality hit home this weekend as I stared at my bike with the punctured back tyre that I last rode in December.
A few weeks ago I had tendinitis for two days after an afternoon spent playing fives football with my 12-year-old son.
What was going on? I’ve been getting away with a few life hacks on my journey to 40. Receding hairline and grey? Simple, just keep it short because less is more, as the lady who used to cut my hair once told me.
Slim cut suits and shirts are great to manage the emergence of a boep. Contact lenses to keep up the youthful appearance (although the eye doc did say I would need reading glasses in a year’s time).
So, not yet having made peace with joining the so-called pille and brille gang, I made what I thought was a very adult and responsible decision this week. I was withdrawing my participation in the Cape Town Cycle Tour.
The decision was a tough one to make. I’ve grown to love this event and, although it’s a breeze for many, for a below-average chap like myself, it is the holy grail of cycling. I had to listen to my body. It was screaming no!
And so I unburdened myself from the nagging about getting rides in and ignored the get-riding-fit training regime that a Twitter acquaintance kindly sent me.
I took a solemn decision there and then, while staring at that flat tyre, that in the last few days of my 30s, leading up to the big day, I was going to cut loose.
A Mariam’s Kitchen steak salomie sure, bring it on. Two Seattle Freezes a day, yes please! Staying up until 2am to watch Gangs of New York on the telly for the umpteenth time? Might as well.
The rationale is, of course, flawed. But what I was trying to do was make the most of the few days before the big four-oh and then I would pull myself together when it arrived.
Did it work? Well, it proved to me that my 40s has signalled a new kind of freedom: the freedom to choose how I’m going to do the next 40 years and how I was ready to do it on my terms.
The influence of peer pressure of my 20s and the uncertainty of my 30s have been symbolically wiped away by the blowing out of 40 candles (that’s a lot of candles).
It didn’t happen on the birthday but over some time leading up to it. I am comfortable in my skin - even that flappy bit where a tricep is meant to be. It’s the freedom to be more circumspect about the company and choosing family first above all else.
It’s the freedom that comes with realising that material things are just things and it’s the living that makes a life.
So the secret to avoiding what my lovely spouse calls my mid-life crisis lay in getting my head right first before the body could follow.
Training for the 2019 Cape Town Cycle Tour starts in earnest this week and I’ll be aiming for a personal best. No more (regular) salomies, and sensible eating is the order of the day.
This time I’ll remember to stretch first. After all, I’m 40 now.
* Follow more of Abarder’s musings on Twitter - @GasantAbarder.