I would relive this age if I could

Yes, the best wine is the one I’m drinking now and the best day is the one I’m living now and the best movie ever is the one I’m watching now, but the best time of my life is already long past. Of course, pretty much everything in my life is long past, even if I can still buy green bananas.

I was reminiscing the other day and it occurred to me that the best years of our lives go by without us realizing we’re at our apex. We’re too busy with the day-to-day, the striving, the deadlines and detritus, so we miss the moments we should savor the most.

I’m enjoying my life now, looking forward to what comes next, planning for the future, even as I look over my shoulder every so often for the Reaper’s hoodie…and all is right with the world, more or less. I wouldn’t want to go back and relive my childhood or high school or college or pretty much any other time of life…but there is one period I think I’d leap through time to experience all over again and that’s my 40s.

It goes without saying that this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I’ll say it anyway to avoid hate mail and legal action. For a huge number of us, especially the people who decide to raise kids, the fifth decade is the absolute best and for many reasons:

1. We’re still in our physical prime, more or less. We’re not as fast as we were at 22, but our knees still bend without creaking and we can remember most of our passwords. We can drink too much and stay out too late and recover from it by noon, maybe two, and we can still do that sex thing without a stunt double.
   
   
2. We’re mentally sharp, almost as sharp as we were in our 20s, and we’ve picked up enough insights and life hacks to seem even smarter than when we were younger. We still remember our childhoods and our teens and some of those nights in college that are best forgotten. And, if we have kids, we still know more than they do, so they think we’re smart. They’ll figure it out eventually, but not yet.
   
   
3. Speaking of kids, for many/most of us, they’re out of diapers and not yet in street gangs, so we can get at least a bit of enjoyment from parenthood. Yeah, we’ll spend way too much time in the audience at the school gym, watching an unwatchable performance, and we’ll cheer them on a bit too aggressively when they’re on the ball field, but they’ll be staging a non-stop display of mental, physical and emotional development that’s a miracle not to be missed.
   
   
4. At work, we’ve figured out what we’ll be doing for a living and, just maybe, we’ll have advanced enough to consider it a career. Even if we aren’t the CEO yet, we aren’t handing out the folders and doing coffee runs, either. We’ll probably be complaining about the work ethic of the next generation, which means we’ve truly arrived.
   
   
5. Financially, we’re finally making enough money to pay the bills and afford a vacation or two with the family. We might not be set for retirement yet, but we’re heading into our prime earning years and we have the opportunity to tee ourselves up for financial security later.
   
   

Yep, those are the best years of our lives and, also yep, most of us don’t know it until we’re looking back later. Caught up in work and soccer games and the uncertainties of existence, we strut and fret through our 40s as if there was some prize at the end of the decade. There isn’t, though, because this decade is the prize. Some things will get better after this and some things worse, but somewhere in these years we’ll have our stars in alignment.

Don’t panic if you’ve hit 50 and you forgot to savor the past ten years. There’s plenty to look forward to and no urgent need to jump off the roof. If you’re still in your 20s or 30s, though, make a note to savor every moment when your golden decade arrives. Trust me, it will be gone in a blink.

Yeah, you thought the best days were when you got your first real six-string, but you were wrong. Feel free to argue, though, right after clicking here to subscribe.

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