(Image shows a chocolate cake with candles)
I turned 40 on Saturday.
If you spend much time on social media (I'd just made the decision I was done with it...and then I got a freelance gig which did not disclose how much of it was actually "be on social media"...I wasn't, and am not, in a financial position to drop it, which I'd honestly prefer to do...) you'll almost certainly have come across people "explaining" that "ackshually, midlife isn't 40 - the average age of death is 76, so middle age is 36! Think about THAT when you realise how long you're being expected to labour for capitalism!"
As is very common with the chronically online brigade, especially those who love to cite the "study" that "proved" that "the frontal lobe isn't fully developed until 25" (it didn't; the study only included people up to the age of 25, and no one's frontal lobe was fully developed...because, if you actually know anything about neurology, you'll know that the human brain is constantly developing, throughout a person's life, until conditions such as Lewy Body Dementia, Alzheimers, stroke, or traumatic brain injury prevent the brain continuing its normal development), whilst...not recognising what that might mean about whether they should be yapping on about a topic they literally just came across on Discord as though they've done years of indepth research into it - and often aggressively mocking people who have done those years of indepth research, or, in the cases of ethnic or political regime experience, have actually lived through it.
"Middle age" isn't about "are you exactly halfway to dying?" (because that's different for everyone - even in my family, those who've died, whose age at death I know, cover a range of ages: 2 days, 32, 59, 61, 65, 60, 63, 89, 91, and 102...) Middle age is 40, for everyone, because it's the strikingly jarring realisation that 20 years ago, you were 20 - objectively "young", looking ahead to all the possibilities of life, at the start of things, and, in 20 years' time, you'll be 60 - looking, more so, towards the end of things. Aware of all the things your body, finances, and life commitments prevent you doing, rather than thinking about all the things you could do or become.
For me, this birthday has resulted in a significant depression flare.
If you spend much time on social media (I'd just made the decision I was done with it...and then I got a freelance gig which did not disclose how much of it was actually "be on social media"...I wasn't, and am not, in a financial position to drop it, which I'd honestly prefer to do...) you'll almost certainly have come across people "explaining" that "ackshually, midlife isn't 40 - the average age of death is 76, so middle age is 36! Think about THAT when you realise how long you're being expected to labour for capitalism!"
As is very common with the chronically online brigade, especially those who love to cite the "study" that "proved" that "the frontal lobe isn't fully developed until 25" (it didn't; the study only included people up to the age of 25, and no one's frontal lobe was fully developed...because, if you actually know anything about neurology, you'll know that the human brain is constantly developing, throughout a person's life, until conditions such as Lewy Body Dementia, Alzheimers, stroke, or traumatic brain injury prevent the brain continuing its normal development), whilst...not recognising what that might mean about whether they should be yapping on about a topic they literally just came across on Discord as though they've done years of indepth research into it - and often aggressively mocking people who have done those years of indepth research, or, in the cases of ethnic or political regime experience, have actually lived through it.
"Middle age" isn't about "are you exactly halfway to dying?" (because that's different for everyone - even in my family, those who've died, whose age at death I know, cover a range of ages: 2 days, 32, 59, 61, 65, 60, 63, 89, 91, and 102...) Middle age is 40, for everyone, because it's the strikingly jarring realisation that 20 years ago, you were 20 - objectively "young", looking ahead to all the possibilities of life, at the start of things, and, in 20 years' time, you'll be 60 - looking, more so, towards the end of things. Aware of all the things your body, finances, and life commitments prevent you doing, rather than thinking about all the things you could do or become.
For me, this birthday has resulted in a significant depression flare.
My 20s got wiped out by severe mental illness (schizophrenic breakdown and subsequent intensive treatment), homelessness, managing the administrative exhaustion of medical transition, sexual harassment and financial abuse in two different forms of employment, the terminal illness and death of my father, and my mother violently assaulting me. There was a lot of poverty and stress tied up in all of that, obviously.
At the end of my 20s, I got married.
My 30s seemed to be getting somewhat on track - then the pandemic hit. We were a shielding household, as my wife's disabilities include compromised lung function, so I couldn't work (I'd frustrating had to give up my job 6mths before, because a bus I relied on got scrapped - I was already having to arrive late, and go without lunch to make that up, travelling by bus - walking wasn't viable - and the job wouldn't allow me to work from home...if the bus company had waited 6mths to scrap the route, I would have just been working from home, and might well still be in that job.) Almost immediately after my household's life began to open up after the pandemic, I was told I was legally blind, and would likely lose my sight entirely by the time I'm 50. The impact of sight loss resulted in the loss of two further jobs, both of which I'd hoped could become careers, and resultant poverty and stress.
I didn't get to manifest the bold belief in both my own potential and the potential in the world that I felt at 20.
My body is already showing physical disabilities which are more common with people in their 60s. I'm never going to be able to retire, because the past 20yrs didn't allow me enough time of having the money to pay into a pension in a way which makes it worth anything (and the UK doesn't show anything like the same compound returns that the American finance "gurus" love to bang on about.) I'm facing a future of having to financially support two disabled trans people for an entirely unpredictable period of time - I could live for only another 20-25 years, or I could live for another 50-60 years...that span is impossible to plan for, realistically - in an increasingly violently hostile society. That's terrifying, exhausting, and, increasingly, causing extremely strong suicidal ideation.
It didn't help that I'd had an intention for my 40th birthday to be about reaffirming friendships, including those that had drifted or lapsed because of distance and differing circumstances - and no one was able to come. Two people didn't even respond. And then I was unwell on the actual day anyway (I don't do well in extreme heat - it's looking increasingly likely I may have fibromyalgia, as all of my experiences, including several "separate health conditions", match the symptoms listed for fibro...having explored what the available UK treatment is, it's pretty much stuff I've already been doing, because, as a qualified naturopath, it makes logical sense - trying to be physically active every day, eating sensibly, staying hydrated, pacing with appropriate rest intervals - there is the possibility of being prescribed antidepressants, but I've never got on that well with them, and I don't subscribe to the idea of long-term suppression of anything, including mental health experiences.)
I have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (without attendant autism or ADHD), which also means that my brain is now trying to tell me that the reason my best friend of 25yrs wasn't able to make it wasn't, as she'd said, that she needed to take that shift at her job, because she'd had a lot of shifts cut recently, with attendant loss of income, but because she actually didn't want to hang around with trans people any more - despite us having dated early in my transition, while she is entirely heterosexual, and her working in seasonal hospitality, which is very precarious around regular shifts, etc. The media narrative following the publication of the EHRC guidance doesn't really help with that - after all, who would want to be associated with people who have basically been legally reduced to non-people?
Every response to "how do you make friends as a man in your 40s" is either physical activities which are not accessible for me, going down the pub (which is neither enjoyable nor affordable for me), or the "men's groups" - which I tend to be very wary of, as, around here, they're likely to be populated by people who are mildly homophobic and misogynistic, who are not the kinds of people I want to spend my time with - I've intersected with members of the most prominent of these groups on social media...where they were talking about how "misunderstood" Charlie Kirk was, and how "he made it so clear how men literally aren't allowed to do or say anything these days" - I'm not going to get along with people like that, and I'm certainly not going to be safe around those people.
I have tried to set up the kind of groups I'd like to join - apparently, no one else resonates with those interests. Which is fine, but still kind of isolating.
I feel a key aspect for the rest of this year will be the acceptance that, while Warriors are inherently social and connected, Magicians typically do thrive in seclusion - and that seclusion is not isolation. Seclusion is giving oneself space to be quiet, reflective, and focusing on oneself in order to come into community with full self-knowledge; isolation, by contrast, is a refusal of the concept or possibility of community, an arrogance in how "different" from everyone else one is, and a fixation on the feelings of isolation, rather than the productive explorations of self.
I can't be a Warrior any longer. Firstly, I've aged out of that. Warriors are young men. Youth is the right and proper time for Warriorship. Secondly, my body cannot physically support Warriorship any more.
But I live in a society which pretty much only values men as Warriors. It can feel like if I want to be accepted as a man I have to be a Warrior. This has had me exploring conversion to Islam previously, before I came to follow a Pagan path, because Islam holds space for men to be both Warriors and Scholars (which equates, for me, to Magicians). I came to find Paganism more resonant because of its stronger ties to the land and the elements, and the more flawed representations of the gods and goddesses, the impression that the gods and goddesses expect their followers to try to solve problems themselves before they'll intervene.
Right now, I feel very isolated. I recognise that, in order to move further along my path to Magician-hood, I need to translate that to the more productive concept of seclusion, and embrace the work that can be done there.
At the end of my 20s, I got married.
My 30s seemed to be getting somewhat on track - then the pandemic hit. We were a shielding household, as my wife's disabilities include compromised lung function, so I couldn't work (I'd frustrating had to give up my job 6mths before, because a bus I relied on got scrapped - I was already having to arrive late, and go without lunch to make that up, travelling by bus - walking wasn't viable - and the job wouldn't allow me to work from home...if the bus company had waited 6mths to scrap the route, I would have just been working from home, and might well still be in that job.) Almost immediately after my household's life began to open up after the pandemic, I was told I was legally blind, and would likely lose my sight entirely by the time I'm 50. The impact of sight loss resulted in the loss of two further jobs, both of which I'd hoped could become careers, and resultant poverty and stress.
I didn't get to manifest the bold belief in both my own potential and the potential in the world that I felt at 20.
My body is already showing physical disabilities which are more common with people in their 60s. I'm never going to be able to retire, because the past 20yrs didn't allow me enough time of having the money to pay into a pension in a way which makes it worth anything (and the UK doesn't show anything like the same compound returns that the American finance "gurus" love to bang on about.) I'm facing a future of having to financially support two disabled trans people for an entirely unpredictable period of time - I could live for only another 20-25 years, or I could live for another 50-60 years...that span is impossible to plan for, realistically - in an increasingly violently hostile society. That's terrifying, exhausting, and, increasingly, causing extremely strong suicidal ideation.
It didn't help that I'd had an intention for my 40th birthday to be about reaffirming friendships, including those that had drifted or lapsed because of distance and differing circumstances - and no one was able to come. Two people didn't even respond. And then I was unwell on the actual day anyway (I don't do well in extreme heat - it's looking increasingly likely I may have fibromyalgia, as all of my experiences, including several "separate health conditions", match the symptoms listed for fibro...having explored what the available UK treatment is, it's pretty much stuff I've already been doing, because, as a qualified naturopath, it makes logical sense - trying to be physically active every day, eating sensibly, staying hydrated, pacing with appropriate rest intervals - there is the possibility of being prescribed antidepressants, but I've never got on that well with them, and I don't subscribe to the idea of long-term suppression of anything, including mental health experiences.)
I have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (without attendant autism or ADHD), which also means that my brain is now trying to tell me that the reason my best friend of 25yrs wasn't able to make it wasn't, as she'd said, that she needed to take that shift at her job, because she'd had a lot of shifts cut recently, with attendant loss of income, but because she actually didn't want to hang around with trans people any more - despite us having dated early in my transition, while she is entirely heterosexual, and her working in seasonal hospitality, which is very precarious around regular shifts, etc. The media narrative following the publication of the EHRC guidance doesn't really help with that - after all, who would want to be associated with people who have basically been legally reduced to non-people?
Every response to "how do you make friends as a man in your 40s" is either physical activities which are not accessible for me, going down the pub (which is neither enjoyable nor affordable for me), or the "men's groups" - which I tend to be very wary of, as, around here, they're likely to be populated by people who are mildly homophobic and misogynistic, who are not the kinds of people I want to spend my time with - I've intersected with members of the most prominent of these groups on social media...where they were talking about how "misunderstood" Charlie Kirk was, and how "he made it so clear how men literally aren't allowed to do or say anything these days" - I'm not going to get along with people like that, and I'm certainly not going to be safe around those people.
I have tried to set up the kind of groups I'd like to join - apparently, no one else resonates with those interests. Which is fine, but still kind of isolating.
I feel a key aspect for the rest of this year will be the acceptance that, while Warriors are inherently social and connected, Magicians typically do thrive in seclusion - and that seclusion is not isolation. Seclusion is giving oneself space to be quiet, reflective, and focusing on oneself in order to come into community with full self-knowledge; isolation, by contrast, is a refusal of the concept or possibility of community, an arrogance in how "different" from everyone else one is, and a fixation on the feelings of isolation, rather than the productive explorations of self.
I can't be a Warrior any longer. Firstly, I've aged out of that. Warriors are young men. Youth is the right and proper time for Warriorship. Secondly, my body cannot physically support Warriorship any more.
But I live in a society which pretty much only values men as Warriors. It can feel like if I want to be accepted as a man I have to be a Warrior. This has had me exploring conversion to Islam previously, before I came to follow a Pagan path, because Islam holds space for men to be both Warriors and Scholars (which equates, for me, to Magicians). I came to find Paganism more resonant because of its stronger ties to the land and the elements, and the more flawed representations of the gods and goddesses, the impression that the gods and goddesses expect their followers to try to solve problems themselves before they'll intervene.
Right now, I feel very isolated. I recognise that, in order to move further along my path to Magician-hood, I need to translate that to the more productive concept of seclusion, and embrace the work that can be done there.
.jfif)
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