I just turned 41.
I’m the age my parents were after having me “late in life”. My brother is eighteen years older than me. At this point in her life, I would have been six for my mom and a toddler for my dad.
By the age I am now, my one sister owned a home, was married, and had two children. My other sister lived in multiple countries and had three teenagers.
My peers at work, including those years younger, are married, own homes, and have children.
Forty-one.
Twenty years ago doesn’t feel that far ago for me. Those memories feel as fresh in my mind as occurrences last week. My life then was very similar: writing on this blog, single, renting a place, collecting books, travelling. I play the same video games I did then. I listen to CBC radio and podcasts like I did then. I’m on the same social media platforms as then.
So many things feel the same and I feel like that makes the passage of time feel oddly short at moments. Outside looking in at those peers with kids, I see different life stages – single, coupled, married, home owners, parents of infants, parents of toddlers, parents of young children, parents of middle schoolers, parents of young teens, parents of older teens, parents of young adults. I feel like life under those circumstances passes more slowly then when stuck in a single life stage.
I recognize that some of that characterization is unfair to myself. I did tremendous emotional growth during the last two decades. I’ve been in eight relationships. I’ve worked for seven companies and attained a staff engineering position at a Silicon Valley startup. I entered vehicle ownership. I saw the end of my hacker phase, saw through the queer activist phase, had a church phase, gym phase, now am in an off-road / gun / kayak phase. I visited I don’t know how many countries. So I don’t want to sell myself short, but I can’t help but feel a same-ness to it.
How much of it is real? How much of it is all the ways hitting these other life stages is talked about but kinda bs?
I hear parents talk about how fast their kids are growing. Friends I feel like I visited yesterday, who were expecting their first, are now sharing that their eldest turned ten. Maybe it’s fast for them too; but it seems like it’s on another level for me.
I look to actors who were young in their nineties and they’re dying off from age-related causes now. The nineties isn’t that far back for me. And so I’m aware that the span from then to now, is the span from now to the end of my life. I don’t want to lose that time. I don’t want the next twenty years to feel as quick as the last.
I’m packing my days with novelty and experiences. This weekend for instance:
- Friday after work: I hit a new-to-me basement pub in a church with my bff. There was live music with talented fiddlers.
- Saturday morning: I drove to Richmond and bought a rifle.
- Saturday mid-day: I drove to Maxville with a friend to attend the Highland Games.
- Saturday evening: I drove to Port Elmsley and watched a triple bill (Spiderman: Brand New Day, Stand by Me, Backrooms). I got home at 4am.
- Sunday: I picked up another friend in Navan, and went to Carleton Place and Almonte to go antique shopping.
It doesn’t seem to be enough, however, for time to stop. I feel like the only way out is to pack up and live elsewhere; a dream location like Whitehorse or near Banff/Jasper.
But then would I be miserable, away from my close friends, away from the quiet access to nature here, away from Quebec cinemas, away from affordable homes? I’m not rich and money does buy happiness – that extra thousand dollars a month that I save in rent pays dividends in smiles.
But I also don’t want to be stuck. Realistically, I had one shot, and it was to move to New Zealand before the pandemic shut the borders and made them turn away the foreign tech workers they had been campaigning so hard to bring in. I have a Jeep and guns and don’t live out of a figurative suitcase anymore – there’s so much more to give up now by doing that move.
Nor am I rich enough to keep my place and rent somewhere else for a few months either. The cost of living has exploded. But I also need to sort myself out; time is running out.
Tok tok tok.