40

40 today.  And how did I mark this momentous occasion?  By taking my first vacation day of the year and driving 550 miles in about 10 hours to Whitefish, Montana!  By myself.   My present to myself is a weekend in Glacier National Park – somewhere I’ve been wanting to go to for a while.  A lot of driving – so I’m quite exhausted now as I write this!  Since turning 40 is a big deal, I guess I should say something about how I feel.  Should I be happy or sad?  Should I look forward or look back?  I definitely don’t feel like celebrating – the next few sentences are going to be quite maudlin, so you have been warned!  I look at how my life is right now, and it’s not great.  Whereas my contemporaries have moved on with their lives – through family or their career – mine has not, and I feel like I’m losing touch with them.  I’m not happy, personally or professionally.  And, once again, I’m feeling very unsettled and suspect that I’ve made yet another bad life decision – this time in moving back to Seattle.  I’m at a point in my life where I should have made roots somewhere – but I haven’t.  And what was a good thing – my independence – has soured into loneliness – which is a very bad thing.  I think perhaps the most worrying aspect of all this is that I’ve kind of accepted my life as it is – so  I don’t do anything about changing or improving it.  This has to change in my 40s.  I think it’s also time to start taking my health and my finances more seriously.  I also said that I would start playing golf when I turn 40 – that is a prospect I still haven’t decided whether to follow through on!  Perhaps I am prone to being overly pessimistic and overly negative, so maybe my life isn’t a total disaster – but despite making the permanent (?) move to the States, my 30s have felt like a letdown with a string of bad decisions and missed opportunities.  I hope and pray that my 40s will be better!