“If you’re beautiful when you’re older, it’s not a free gift. It’s because your face shows qualities that are timeless – strength, kindness, dedication, wisdom, enthusiasm and humor, intelligence, compassion.”
John Cleese

These days, it is said that the forties are the new 20’s – meaning that we, as a people seem “younger” than those of the same age a generation ago. Isn’t it amazing that despite the stresses we are subjected to, the pictures of our moms appear more matronly at 30 than we do in our mid-forties? Indeed, life begins at 40, especially when you consider that we have so much to cram into our lives. Whether we heap wisdom or trash depends on how we see the world, the choices we make, whom we love and whom we let go. Interestingly, even the virtues of such choices seem unclear until we falter, become undone, affirmed or vindicated.

Apart from childhood when it was okay to be a bit selfish, the intervening years were spent on growing up, earning a living and consequently doing more for others. In between work, building up one’s status and raising a family, the essence of who we really are becomes hazy, if not lost. REACHING for goals morphs into an obsession and achievements become medals that replace any emotional void or pain we suffer from. In my 30’s I often wondered why I was so tired and frazzled, not to mention spaced-out and lethargic – all symptomatic of stress and anxiety though under different guises. I was multi-tasking, running a lone marathon (essentially a contest against myself) and losing focus most of the time. Some people apparently juggle career, fortunes & personal lives quite effortlessly but sadly I don’t belong to that esteemed group. However, I have come to realize that I am just a prayer away from the precipice because I spread myself too thinly without leaving reserves for my own needs. In time it becomes a vicious cycle because you simply can’t continue giving what you do not have.

And then comes the gentle years of the forties – a comforting and comfortable time because pressures of work are less, directions are clearer, you have achieved sense of worth (or at least come to terms with limitations) and child-rearing draws to a close. The epiphany of finally being happy while doing things I have always wanted to do and spending time with people I love sans guilt is so ultimately freeing! Of course in the final analysis, I will never regret the times I spent learning, unlearning and picking myself up. While the rewards of the past are priceless, I treasure the fact that I have valuable years left ahead of me to discover new mysteries, to laugh and to dance to the passionate rhythm of this so-called life, finally equipped with a sense of balance not to fall over the brink.