What Happens at 40?
Some time ago I wrote an article about the feeling of freedom, in one of those more complex months. Article that I really enjoy re-reading, because perhaps it is one of those where the intensity of the moment is triggered. The photo I placed was similar to this, although the timing was not the same.
But in general, the image taken on the last family trip reminds me of that moment when the road makes its way and gives us the time to review our lives. In recent days a friend made me the consultation that is quite common, what happens when you reach the forty and on this occasion of the trip I made a slight relation of why the question and if there is any reason to stereotype. So responding, I could say that there is no change.
We still feel the same, in the mirror we feel the same, we resigned without much pain the gray, not to support two games of soccer in a row, but in general the spirit and aspirations remain the same.
What has changed is our context, the boys are growing and entering that stage where they demand more time -with more quality-, with more awareness. So that priorities change in life, between what our 25 years believed was freedom and what eventually gets to satisfy our free time. Also the others do not see us the same, and not of taste.
Everyone's life will be different, and society itself dictates some guidelines for what should represent success, satisfaction, happiness, leisure, inspiration, family life. This virtue of thinking differently makes each 21,600 seconds in length context different. So some of this reflection fits just a classic Latin American context, with more or less variation if we include the change of latitude above the 40 North.
In general, what does not change is that little by little, between 30 and 40 years our focus begins to focus on the growth of our children (or nephews for those who do not). That varies for late marriages, or those who got ahead early. Our former classmates or college students go through something similar, the experience lived and the successes acquired makes us forget academic rivalries or nonsense of adolescence. And then we agreed to make remembrances of those years and we are pleased to see that their children are growing too.
Those who got ahead are beginning to feel alone because their children are leaving for college and rejoining their generation; those without them begin to feel a mixture of “I did not go" with "I should” and seek their own context with a younger generation that enjoys between leisure and extreme academia while they have time to think about family.
And, therefore, the generality when we reach forty, the interest becomes stronger so that our children get ahead with less blows than we do. While they were in school, we were little worried because their innocent affection was never challenging, they never doubted that we were impeccable heroes, they never had self-esteem crises that would reach extremes. Also the girl who has accompanied these years our joys has a similar interest, -if it could be preserved until then-. And that combination of interests, makes life in the forties or feel head or disconnect family interests.
So, here are some of my thoughts from the last journey regarding the context of these creatures.
With this element, we have resumed math classes. More now that the algebra thing has gotten good and that it has seen that it is not of the other world but that occupy to work all the guides with time.
This has been an interesting experience since it has taken time to convince him that he is brilliant in math but that is not enough. Last year he came to believe that he was lousy, more because of me than him or his teachers. Finally, I am reassured to know that if you decide on systems engineering, you can overcome the hard stage of mathematics. Although to my liking it would be brilliant in marketing and advertising ... that will be decided by him. There is no doubt that he will be a technological poet, something that started in third grade with a crazy blog in which he talks things that I myself do not understand but that has helped him to know how to order ideas and to write with good clarity. |
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With it the thing is different. Sometimes it is necessary to stop it because it inherited my bad custom of presuming of the agility mental.
But it is also a risk to imagine what I could study in the future. A brilliant journalist, for his ability to write. An architect for her agility with her hands, drawing and details. For now, she says she will be a teacher ... she sure will be in her specialty. In the photo, with the typical costume of the day of the Indian, just these days in the coordinate UTM of the country that asylum me. He would definitely give anything to follow her by smiling like that. |
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On the last trip we climbed to the top of the cliff, with the tongue of a tie. Below the houses were seen as model pieces, in the background the mountains of the Puca Opalaca mountain range.
My son hardly saw down and threw himself as an iguana on some rocks that I can not explain how they could get there. Incredible view! |
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So are our creatures, so different. Sometimes it is hard for me to think that this is that kid who I had to take on the third day of birth at dawn believing that his navel was bleeding. ... time passes and not taste. I remember that in my inexperience I thought that the clotted blood of the navel that I had not yet started was fresh blood. When we got to the hospital, the doctor pulled it out like a tit and cleaned it with a hyssop. He despatched us with a good reprimand of why we were putting a fajón, a coin of 5 cents and some gloves so that it did not suck the hands. ahhh how innocent we were. |
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In the park of the village, interesting sculptures adorn a legendary tree of Ceiba, which was planted by Mr. Bonifacio Gómez in the year of 1932.
The municipality was founded in 1887 as San Juan de Buena Vista although it is known as San Juan del Caite, whose name comes from the old heritage in the leather curtimbre. Then we lay on the grass and saw the branches under the sky ... like fools. Ha Until the bites of mosquitoes made us flee remembering the old history of this place that there was a large epidemic of a mosquito plague, where people paid him the disease of malaria and in the absence of doctors were cured only with roots and herbs |
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Then we went to the river, which was a little overgrown.
Here we remember the old legend that says that this town was once a lake, you just have to see how the rain falls on the street that counts to Erandique to see that it seems that the water leaves the earth and does not fall from the sky. |
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In the town we ate a delicious chicken soup, with guanaco style tortillas, because the influence of El Salvador in the area is very strong.
Freshly made, they add a little lemon and salt ... it is a delight. Time definitely changes. We learn to enjoy the simple moments, either in the mall with a good coffee granite as in a small town. Not because we have changed, but because the context of those we love has changed. |
On the way back, we took this picture in the Otoro Valley, looking towards the area from which we came.
What happens to the 40?
Nothing.
But this article would not have counted that way 15 years ago.