The Gnawing 40s

Sun Herald

Sunday July 11, 2004

John Larkin

What's so scary about turning 40? Author John Larkin reveals why entering middle age turns the average male into a revhead with Himalayan ambitions.

There was a timewhen men celebrated their masculinity by joining a "men's group". Bunches of seemingly ordinary blokes, who appeared to have a penchant for running off into a forest, would bang drums and hug trees before oiling themselves down and yodelling in the general direction of goats. When I was invited to attend one of these men's groups in the early 90s -?"to reclaim the middle ground lost by men to feminism" -?I wrote back saying I'd love to ... but unfortunately, my wife wouldn't let me. The fact was, however, that the idea of spending an entire weekend with a bunch of blokes who were attempting to recapture their essential blokiness filled me with horror.

Ten years on and having turned 40, I'm starting to see the appeal of going native for a weekend. After a week of changing nappies, preparing meals that no one even pretends to like, hanging out the washing while wearing a peg-apron and watching the remake (is nothing sacred?) of Bill And Ben The Flowerpot Men, the idea of running off into a forest for a good solid yell seems positively compulsory.

Yes, it's a cliche but something definitely happens to men when we hit our 40s. Recently, a good friend, a lecturer in accounting, picked me up for soccer training in his brand-new throbbing piece of V8 Freudian symbolism. Prior to that he had never shown the slightest interest in cars. Now he was bragging about how, on the way home from a lecture, he had blown away some homeboys in a souped-up Japanese import at a set of traffic lights. Glancing over to the back seat at the incongruously placed booster seat and baby capsule, I said it

was lucky his daughters weren't with him at the time. He impishly informed me they were.

"Jeff," I said, "you're pathetic! You're giving midlife crises a bad name."

"I know," he replied, "but I'm having fun and the girls loved it."

Looking around the car park at soccer training for my over-35s team that night, I noticed an inversely proportional relationship at work: the older, slower and duller we become, the younger, faster and shinier our cars appear to be getting.

Turning 40 means the sand in the top half of the hourglass is getting on for half empty (or half full depending ... no, it's definitely half empty) and the flow of the remaining sand appears to be picking up speed. So if you're going to write a novel, compose a symphony, perform stand-up comedy, trek to Nepal, read Ulysses or embark on an affair with a twentysomething woman, then you ought to be getting on with it. Life may begin at 40 but it is, in many respects, the beginning of the end.

And on that cheery thought, let's turn to our bodies. All through

our 30s, we watched our sixpacks gradually but inexorably turn into kegs. And now, in our 40s, we look on in abject horror as gravity slowly begins to draw the increased mass back into the bowels of the earth like the Eloi into the Morlocks' cavern.

As middle age arrives, health experts and wives (who are often one and the same) offer gentle warnings that our bacon-and-eggs-and-coffee breakfast blow-outs should be replaced with fruit, cereal and a drink purporting to be delicious and nutritious while at the same time having significantly less taste than its cardboard container. Through our 40s and on into our 50s, hair starts to disappear from our heads at an alarming rate and begins to sprout out of our ears, which is an evolutionary poke in the eye for which God or Darwin must eventually be held accountable.

When I turned 30, I promised myself that for my 40th I would learn to play the trombone, climb Mount Everest (with said trombone) and have a good old toot on the summit. Tragically, though, when I climbed a warm-up mountain in Ireland - a mountain of such awe-inspiring magnitude that I believe its summit is actually below sea level - my knees blew up like disgruntled puffer fish and that was the end of that.

There's a certain amount of emasculation that comes with ageing and losing one's status in society - a status that no amount of wigs, follicle transplants, Botox injections or material purchases can enhance, although it isn't for the want of trying. And, indeed, it's this feeling of emasculation that the makers of shiny red convertibles and marketers of quick-fix solutions have exploited to their full advantage.

But even if you're not given to splashing out on sports cars, mistresses or trombone lessons, then turning 40 (the sudden realisation that it is no longer possible to consider yourself boyish) can, for many of us, be existentialist crisis time.

An increasing number of men are dropping (downshifting, sea-changing) out of the corporate world in order to, for example, write the great Australian novel. But what if you're a novelist turning 40? Are you going to suddenly drop out of the literary world in order to become an insurance claims assessor? It doesn't bear thinking about.

But don't despair. It's not all bad. With age comes knowledge and, as we all know, knowledge is power. We fortysomethings are wiser, better educated, more intelligent and worldlier than we were when we were in our 20s - and what's more, we're still young enough to do something about it.

I woke up this morning, looked in the bathroom mirror and saw Samuel Beckett's eyes staring back at me. In the age of makeovers (garden, home and facial), I immediately thought, "Botox, facelift, only go out at night," but then sanity prevailed and I thought, "No, the bags under my eyes are the result of staying up late and reading thousands of books and tapping out a few of my own along the way." They are my badge (or bags) of honour and I will wear them with pride. And besides, as the need arises, I can always hide them behind my Guccis when I'm prowling the streets in my new meno-Porsche.

The signs of a midlife crisis

* Uncharacteristic thoughts, which may include a sense of a loss of meaning, feelings of being trapped, anger, depression, boredom, anxiety or dissatisfaction.

* Constant inner questions such as, "What do I want for the rest of my life?" and "Who am I?"

* Difficulty with health, relationships, work, concentration and sleep.

* Emotional outbursts that appear to come from nowhere.

* Trying to control everything.

* Withdrawal from family, friends and social life.

* Showy behaviours such as affairs, endless acquisition and overwork.

If you're experiencing several of the above and are aged 35 to 50 years, you could be having a midlife crisis. Don't panic, though. This is normal at midlife. Talk

to a counsellor to find out why.

- Robyn Vickers-Willis, psychologist and author of Men Navigating Midlife (Allen & Unwin).