I don’t look 40. Now, I
only say that with only a PINCH of ego. Yeah yeah “black don’t crack”. But I
REALLY don’t look 40. I recently got a tattoo from one of the top tattoo
artists in China. He doesn’t speak a word of English and everything had to go
through his interpreter. They pointed out that two of my tattoos were fading. I
explained that it’s normal for tattoos to fade after 20 years. There response
was, “Are you Asian?” Confused I asked them to explain. They said I must be
Asian to look so young. I admit it made me feel good. Who doesn’t like to hear
compliments like that! After the tattoo the artist said it was a pleasure to
tattoo someone with such healthy skin. My first observation is on why I think I
look young for my age.
No kids. Hey, I love
kids. Even though I’m now 40 I still hope to meet someone not too opposed to
bearing the child of a middle-aged man. As much as children bring laughter and
joy everyone knows they also cause stress. It’s a proven fact that stress ages
the body. I am only concerned with feeding, clothing and caring for myself. I
have eaten cereal for breakfast, lunch, dinner AND snack on more than
a few occasions. I once wore the same pair of socks for a week straight without
washing them. Ok, I was traveling around Central America and lost my other
pairs but still. Try having a 6 year wear the same pair of socks that long. I
only have to worry about myself and sometimes I mess that up! I know how much
stress I caused my mother. I was devious and asked questions non-stop. How she
worked a full time job, dealt with a husband and took care of house and home
without swinging me around by my feet above her head like a helicopter to get
me to shut up I don’t know. Point is, I stressed her. Now my mom looks great
for her age, but if she didn’t have 4 kids she’d be running around here looking
like she’s 35.
I’ve lived in many
different countries and overall my stress level in foreign countries for 11
months equals the stress I experience being in the US for one. I worry less
about what’s in my food outside of the USA. Big difference only needing to
check the sugar and fat content of food and not if it’s been genetically
modified or sprayed with pesticides or even real. I eat way less meat and
smaller portions which in turn makes me healthier. I also snack less being
outside the US, unless it’s cereal. Another thing that makes me healthier?
Vacations! We don’t vacation in the United States. Loading up your bad a$$ kids
and driving 10 hours straight to visit your parents for a 3 day weekend is not a
vacation! When Europeans take a break from work, they BREEAAK! Work is the last
thing on their mind for 5 weeks. FIVE WEEKS! My American butt thought that was ridiculous
until I moved to Europe and actually started vacationing. Talk about wiping the
slate clean and recharging your batteries, whew! But the biggest factor that
keeps me looking youthful from not living in the US is being alive. Real talk.
I go to a movie theater in Europe my biggest concern is if I’ll need to use the
bathroom halfway through, not if a person will walk in and start shooting. Matter of fact, everywhere I go in Europe I know the only people who
will have guns are the police. That is a beautiful thing! Oh, and
police don’t use black people for target practice in Europe. Yeah, that also
keeps a brother looking young. Ducking
and dodging bullets ages a person! In saying that, I still have a sh!t ton of
gray hair!
Which leads me to my
second observation of turning 40. Women LOVE a man with a bit of gray.
When I was in my 20’s I didn’t get why women my own age were all into men so
much older than them. I mean, a man in his 20’s is normally in better shape,
has more hair, more energy, more sexual stamina, and blah blah blah.
Now that I’m 40 there are women who when I was 25 I would’ve had to put in WORK
for are stepping to me. Being in your late 30’s and early 40’s for a man with
some gray is not a bad place to be. I don’t know if they assume older man more
money? Which makes no sense in Berlin since no one has any money here. Or older
man more likely to be ready to settle down? Older men don’t chase it so we’re
more of a challenge? No idea. I just know I ain’t mad!
A very very real thing I
have noticed is the beginning of physical deterioration. Every time I hear
someone who is 40+ talk about being just as good as they were 10 years ago I
want to slap them in the face and yell “Snap out of it man! For the love of God
wake up!” It’s called reality people. How many professional athletes are still
playing at 40 years old? There might be one or two exceptions but for the most
part there are none. And if they are out there they aren’t at the top of their
game. I feel it when I work out. Every 6 weeks I need to change up my workouts
to low impact body weight things to give my joints a rest. In my 20’s I could
go two weeks without working out and eat like I was a prison inmate getting his
last meal and not look any different. If I go three days now without working
out and don’t have a strict healthy diet, I look like I came from a frat party
where I played 12 hours of beer pong straight. Just the way it is. I know I can
push myself to be in the best possible shape I can be in now, and it won’t
match my physical highs of 10 years ago. Case in point, a couple of weeks ago I
started a new workout that calls for me to do explosive vertical jumps. That’s
simply jumping as high as you can, nothing more. But think about it, when is
the last time you’ve jumped as HIGH as you can? Why would you? So I jumped. Now, when I was 13 years old I won silver in the AAU Jr. Olympics in the long jump. I jumped 20ft (6 meters). Where I'm from we call that hops. I could fly. COULD people, remember that. Spiritually
I touched the moon on that first vertical jump. My soul soared and was like “Wahooooooo!”. In reality it was more
like, “Wa!” cause I came back to earth so fast. My spirit hit its head on the roof of my skull from that rapid decent. I clicked my teeth I hit the
ground so hard. My brain was like a woman who is celibate for years then
finally decides to have sex and the man lasts like 3 strokes, “Is that all? Are
you seriously telling me that’s all? I coulda kept my clothes on for that mess.”
My physical body was like the man, “I don’t know what happened! This has never
happened before! Let me try again!”. At that moment I perfectly understood the
saying, mind is willing but the body isn’t able. You know what? I’m perfectly
OK with that. Before I worked out to set personal bests in the gym. When I was 25 I weighed 170lbs (77kg) and benched 385lbs (175kg). Now I work
out to look good naked. I honestly have no idea how much I can bench press and
I could give two sh!ts. My tattoos are still in the same places now as they
were 20 years ago and women still stare at my butt when I wear fitted pants.
THAT is my measuring stick now. Now on the mental level?? TOTALLY different
story! But for the physical? Yeah, I feel it. Extra 15 minutes for warmup
before I work out, taking random days off to recover and joint pain after walking up 5 flights of
stairs is my life at 40.
Intellectual for me is
HUGE! And a sidebar observation, folks these days have forgotten what intellectual
conversation means. Hell! People don’t even KNOW what conversation means!
Conversation is a form of talking. Talking refers to a conversational exchange.
Telling is used to inform or instruct. Talking is not the same as telling. When
people talk they EXCHANGE ideas. Telling is when you provide information and is
a one-way street. If you are always telling your significant other things you
are not creating the environment for you two to learn more about each other and
expand the boundaries of your intellectual capacity. There are only so many
times someone can tell me about their day or what so and so did before I get
bored. But if someone talks to me about the organizational structure of their
job and how it prevents them from growing in a professional capacity or the behavioral
basis for why people act a certain way I’m down like four flat tires to do that
for hours. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds
events; small minds discuss people.” People don’t talk as much as they did 10
or 20 years ago. There are enough posts about that due to a number of factors,
but I definitely notice it as I get older on a personal level. Communication is
the key in relationships and that entails talking, posting Facebook memes does
not count! If you’ve been dating someone for months and you don’t know their
views on politics, religion, relationships, sex, extraterrestrial life, Marvel
vs DC Comics and sweet vs savory… you are missing one of those 4 pillars. And books,
if a person doesn’t have books in their apartment or house, run. Quickly. And don’t stop
until you can't hear their cries of “where are you going?!?”. Books
provide so much fuel for great conversations I can’t see meaningful
conversation without them.
Spiritual and Emotional
are connected in many ways. A couple on some level should believe
there is a higher power that brought them together. I know it sounds hokey but
these are MY observations. I just believe when people act like there was a
cosmic design to bring you together you appreciate what you have a bit more. Hopefully you explore it and strive to
comprehend it on a deeper and more fulfilling level which leads to a stronger
emotional bond. If you’re with someone only because they have the right family
name or enough zeroes in their salary, then your spiritual and emotional connection
is weak. You're also not going to be interested in a more profound relationship either that works toward enlightening your spirits and strengthening your emotional bonds.
Ok, so in theory
relationships lead to marriage and I am at that age now where a lot of first
marriages are ending and second marriages are beginning. Lord knows as someone
who has never been married I have no idea what it takes to be happily married or
have a happy marriage. I have however observed enough relationships and
marriages to have an opinion. Marry your first love or wait until you are as
close to 40 as possible. Now, some people might read first love and imagine
their first boyfriend or girlfriend and say, “Nooo way!”. I would have to
agree. My first REAL girlfriend eventually became my fiancé. What a disaster
that was! Best thing that ever happened was me not marrying that woman. After her
though I met my first love. Oh that experience...Yeah, that experience went on to
shape a significant portion of my life and put a permanent stamp on my
definition of love itself. Your first love is pure and untainted. You only know endless possibilities
and haven’t experienced heartbreak to be distrustful. You follow impulses and desire and
treat every single moment as a treasure with no regard to the consequences. You
love as if you will never be hurt and never doubt the source of your love and
more importantly, theirs. There is no word in any language to describe a first
love. It is an authentic force that never dies, it is only altered and continues
to evolve for all of eternity. It’s never ever a mistake to dive into that love
at the first opportunity and swim in it for as long as you can.
If by chance you don’t
get that opportunity, wait. Again, these are my observations. In my late 20’s I
felt an obligation to get married which is much stronger in certain cultures
than others but still very prevalent. When your heart is clouded by the weight of expectations it’s always best to wait until you can hear it more clearly.
For me it’s as I’ve moved closer to 40. I’ve moved past a lot of insecurity and
dealt with a lot of emotional issues that kept me from being able to truly commit
to a person in a healthy relationship. I had to unlearn some harmful habits andstart trusting the voice of my heart again. A long and painful process but very
necessary part of my journey. I’m not saying I’m 100% ready, but I am much
closer today than I was yesterday and certainly more so than I was 10 years
ago. My level of appreciation for someone who can not only put up with my scars
but love me not in spite of them, but because of them is infinite now. And that’s how I feel about that.
My final observation on
turning 40 is getting older makes you
long-winded! But hey, you can always stop reading! So, I've noticed that your circle of friends shrinks. As you get older the
number of people you consider to be friends grows smaller. That is for a number
of reasons and everyone has different ones. For me I realized that often times
the people I thought were my friends were people who were cool to go out and
party with. Not the same as being someone I could turn to when I felt lost and
needed a steadying hand. I also confused someone being friendly with being my
friend. A conversation I had with a very wise woman set me straight on that a
few years ago. The gist of the conversation was that I was wrong in assuming I
had a lot of female friends. She had one simple test for me when a female who I
hadn’t spoken to in a long time tried to reconnect, ask if they were
single. She explained that more often than not a woman reaching out to me was
because she was currently or recently single and wanted to gauge the possibility
of us RECONNECTING (nudge nudge wink wink). She was right. At my age the people
who want to communicate with me I really like and I believe the feeling is
mutual. There is no hidden agenda and they have my best interest at heart. That
makes our interaction very… reassuring. compared to my 20's, I interact with much fewer people. I'm OK with that. The ones who are in my life now are meant to be there and even if our interaction is brief it's still extremely special to me. It has more impact and value.
Ok, my last observation
of turning 40.. Hey! My birthday, my observations, my rules. So
two last observations! Family. Family gets more
important and you miss them more as you get older. You may have your
differences with your family but you’ve never heard anyone saying that’s my
ex-brother or my ex-cousin. You will always be family and there is something
powerful and special in that. You share a bond with those people that goes
back generations of a lot of different factors coming into play that produced
that blood. With my family I am now Jesus. Not saying I’m turning water
into wine or raising the dead! More like the forgiving part. Believe it was
7x70? In other words, people make mistakes and family should always get extra
leeway. And I live in Berlin so I miss a lot of their mistakes also, easier to forgive what you don't know about! Ha!
Yeah, that’s enough. Now
back to my scheduled 40th birthday celebration in Spain. It’s been a
FUNomenal journey so far and I am looking forward to what the future brings. Hopefully some cake... *sigh I really love cake.
