ARE YOU PAST FORTY?j

Just past forty?

A little depressed? A vague feeling of uneasiness, that life is passing you by? Your children are growing up, you haven't quite made it at work, and you've not gone as far as you planned? You are getting older, and you've suddenly discovered that you are not as immortal as you thought you were when you were younger?

Don't despair, brother or sister. From what I can see, this is quite normal, and most of us feel this way when we pass the magic point in our life that denotes the beginning of middle age. There are two things you can do; one is to accept the fact that the body is getting older, and slow down to a walk, or give up, feel sorry for yourself, and wait to slowly die, figuratively, through degeneration of your thinking and mental attitude.

Or, you can get up on your hind legs and fight. So you are a little older! So what! There is a lot of time left, but it must be used to the fullest degree. Think of it this way; Up until the time you were twenty, what did you do? Not a Hell of a lot.

Spent a lot of time in school, in the corner restaurant talking with the boys, mooning a lot over the latest little bit of fluff in a skirt, and generally doing a lot of useless nonsensical kind of things. There is nothing wrong with this, since we should have some time in our lives when there is little responsibility, and life can be enjoyed without feelings of guilt.

It's too bad we can't live like that now, when we can appreciate it to its fullest, instead of losing it in an adolescent fog. So much for your life up until twenty.

When did you really start to function like a responsible and productive adult? From the age of twenty of course, and if you are now forty, then you have lived a whole lifetime in twenty years. Yes, instead of being forty, in many ways you are only twenty years old, everything that had gone on before was a waste of time, and better forgotten. So what am I saying? It is just this:

If I so choose, I have a whole lifetime ahead of me up until sixty. And, God willing, I can depend on another lifetime until I reach eighty. (how about Rose Kennedy!). Although the body may sag a wee bit, I am not going to let myself grow old mentally, and within reason, I am going to take on new enterprises, and work hard, and sleep well and love well; and I'm going to say "To Hell with the rest of you. I am going to stay young, and if I look a bit silly at times in my colourful clothes, and long hair, and young attitude, you can bet your bottom dollar that I am going to enjoy life, and get the best out of it.

Incidentally, there is no place in my life for booze, for it just screws everything up. I want to have my senses at full alert so that I can enjoy my wife, kids, friends, an early sunrise, a late sunset, fishing, the birds, listening to the grass grow, and I am going to enjoy even a rainy day, when everything is wet and clean smelling, and new and wonderful. How about you?

DON FELSTEAD

Don says: I wrote this article for the Donwood Newsletter in 1974. It is now 2008 and I am 75 years of age. What a lot has transpired! And what a wonderful life it has been. I have a wonder ful wife of nearly 50 years, four grown children doing well, and some grandchildren. I walk 3 to 5 miles a day, volunteer at Royal Victoria Hospital, live life like I always wanted to do.

Of course there are minor health problems, but that comes with the territory. The most important thing I ever did in my life was to quit drinking completely in 1959. It was slowly destroying my life and I had to do something. I changed my job, moved to Orillia for some years and now live in retirement heaven in Barrie, Ont. You can do the same, in your own way. GO FOR IT!