Another lap around the sun.
It’s funny, in my 32nd birthday post, I described feeling like an island, between youth and middle age. Each year has brought me closer to the latter. Now, middle age is only two years away, and I’m looking back on 32 like I was a teenager. And being a teenager feels like a different world altogether. I look at childhood photos like I’m watching a TV series.
Occasionally, I do get those jolts where the memories feel real. Like when I was speaking to a teenage client recently. We were bonding over push scooters and how I once collected scabs on my face from going over the handlebars. My friend and I stole a plank of wood from a construction site in the cover of night. He used it to build a ramp, which we’d then use for tricks.
Time has been slow but also fast at the same time – if that’s possible. I worked at Woolworths in high school, before all the jobs were given to self-service checkouts, and would often get words of wisdom from my regular customers. They’d warn me about time passing before I know it. Given that my Sunday shift would be passing so painfully slow, I didn’t know how they could be right.
Well, now I’m 38. I’m going to bed by 10 pm, getting excited about storage solutions, and not caring about trends or keeping up with anything considered popular culture. More than ever before, mortality is also on my mind. Which is why I don’t particularly look forward to birthdays these days. If my greying hairs weren’t enough of a reminder, I also have the calendar.
It’s a conflicting place to be. I’m aware it’s a privilege to complain about getting older— especially when I’m in good health. Last year, I walked 800 km across Spain while completing the Camino De Santiago. I’m currently lifting weights six mornings a week, and visits to the doctor don’t raise any concerns. But getting older is still hard in a society that sees so much value in youthfulness.
I don’t want to take smiling photos with friends, only to follow it up with critical comments from my inner dialogue. I really don’t. But I know I’m not the only one who does this. So my work is to settle in and age with grace, enjoying my days rather than wishing I were somewhere else. Following my favourite poem, Desiderata, I want to take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Surrendering is mentioned, but I’m looking at it more as a trade. There are benefits to growing older, and I’m reminded when I take my sights away from my greys and I smell those roses. I get to do varied work as a Content Designer, Youth Worker and Therapist – having the kind of lifestyle I always dreamed of. It allows me both financial stability and a sense of meaning by helping others, but not so much that I burn out. I have community– my partner and a group of friends who inspire me in different ways and fill my cup.
I’m in a good place, and I wish I could park things here. But I can’t. Going back to ‘middle age’, I’m feeling the pressure to make things happen— purchase our first house and even decide whether to have children. My friends started having kids in their late 20s. At the time, if you had asked me, I would have laughed. I didn’t have a partner. I didn’t even know myself. Now it’s a possibility. This feels both scary and exciting.
Children aside, with the note that it’s certainly not something everyone has to do. There are recognised stages of life which we respond to in different ways. According to Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, I’m arriving at Stage 7: Generativity versus stagnation. A summary of this stage is as follows:
In this stage, adults strive to create or nurture things, often through parenting, community contributions, or other positive changes. For some, that might be as a parent or a caregiver. It might be through the care and nurture of others. For others, it might be through actions or commitments to helping make the world a better place. Stagnation, on the other hand, refers to getting stuck. People fail to make required changes or remain confused, falling into a midlife crisis of sorts. At its worst, they might give up on certain things, losing the spark for life they once had.
This resonates with me, especially with my counselling and youth work. There’s a unique sense of fulfilment I get from working with clients between their teens and early twenties. I’m not just a therapist, but someone who can share their life experience. When a young man is heartbroken at twenty, it’s powerful for me to say, I know – I’ve been there. And this is where I am now. Meeting clients at this stage of their lives means there are more ways therapy can shape them for the better – possibly changing the trajectory of their lives completely.
Beyond individual therapy, I also have dreams about increasing my impact. My second book, Home, is nearing completion. My podcast is slowly releasing episodes, and I’m on the team at Strong Space Counselling with a group of men who are highly motivated to make an impact in the area of men’s mental health and personal development. In his book Ageless Soul, Thomas Moore describes aging as a current taking one downstream. So while I’m working towards bigger goals, I’m also going with the flow of life without putting too much pressure on myself.
To end off, I want to speak about spirituality. Which has come up as I’ve not only seen myself get older, but also seen my parents. Where it was something I was more involved with in my mid-twenties, and even when I moved to Melbourne, my relationship with spirituality has changed. Back then, my beliefs were something I leaned on to counter the instability in my ‘real’ life. Whereas now, my life is quite sturdy. The shit that wasn’t then is now figured out. So my interest in spirituality is centred on knowing the unknowable – or being okay with not knowing.
No matter what kind of life you build, the carpet will eventually be pulled out. Death is inevitable. So spiritually isn’t about handling the day-to-day, but about holding the fact that this will all be gone one day. And no – I’m not going to join any cults or communes. This is a personal journey, something that began during the Camino de Santiago, which is a Catholic pilgrimage that attracts seekers of all faiths from around the world. I’ve purchased some books on the world’s religions and have started to meditate more. We’ll see where things go.
It’s just something that’s on my mind that I wanted to speak to. I’m aware it has made this post kind of grim. Sorry! Other than that, my birthday involved me going to the gym, spending time with my partner, playing computer games, getting a pizza, having cheesecake and receiving lovely messages. No complaints at all! When you see the little things as big things, every day is your birthday in a way.
Thank you for reading.
