These days I'm finding it hard to sleep. Or rather I'm finding it hard to drag myself to bed. Instead I sit up at night trying to take in every moment before 40 hits me like a steam-roller and, mixing metaphors, knocks the wind out of my sails.
Not that I've loved my 30s. They don't have the 'can't be knocked down' swagger of your 20s or the 'been there done that, about to do it again and with more elan' confidence that I'm hoping my 40s will bring. I think that Elan should be the way forward for me... if I can pull it off.
But there's something melancholy about being up alone. The lig near silence (only the hum of the fridge and a dripping from the roof as today's rain finds its way back to ground keep me company) tends to make for movements that are lighter, more considered.
And still it comes. 40. Rolling toward me like the cloud racing up the beach on a sunny day. There's no way to stay ahead of it and no cure for the darkness into which it sends you. 40. And what? Now what? These aren't the questions that keep me awake, nothing keeps me awake but the desire not to go to sleep, to waste a night that others, somewhere, are savoring.
I like melancholy. That's a problem. Or it could be. But most of all I like the night. The darkness allows us to lower our masks and allow a different persona to emerge. I like myself at night. During the day I'm too busy being my day self to notice this, quieter person. And I don't write crap.
40. man.
1 comment:
I have bad news for you. After 40 you'll find it far far harder to go to bed or waste minute - although will be too tired to do anything with them. At least you no longer have spectacles to lose, but the whole, life ticking on thing... gets amplified once you cross the tape...
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