Just a small disclaimer: this isn't a thread for the purpose of getting birthday wishes or attention, but rather just for venting a little lol. I know the average age on this site is usually higher than on most gaming sites, so maybe a few of you can relate. In any case, for now and for today, im just a moody teenager. Bear with me.
So yeah, today I hit 40, and it feels different. Every other birthday I've had, I never really felt much of a difference. I kept saying things like, "Yeah, 35 is the same as 33 or 34," or "29 feels just like 25." Nothing changes, nothing happens. Life just goes on, you dont feel anything diferent — and so on, and on.
However, today I woke up, and 40 years steamrolled me in an instant. Like boy, they hit me hard. In both a good and a bad way. I think it's mostly the realization that, if I'm lucky, I'm roughly halfway through my life. And boy, that's a weird thought to sit with. Half a lifetime already lived. And 40 sounds serious. It sounds like a certification. Like I should know better by now. And then there's the strange realization that, despite all those years, I don't necessarily feel 40. I don't feel like I've lived four decades. Time has this funny way of moving forward without asking for permission, while some part of you still feels like the person you were years ago.
And it's been a ride. A lot of it has been good, too. As of today, I'm living in my own house, I'm engaged to my girlfriend of four years, and we're getting married next year. I'm happy about all of that. Some people might say it took me a while to get there, im a little old to just be getting married, but im fine with my process. I liked my process. I guess after all I'm ticking the boxes, even though "ticking the boxes" was never really my way of looking at life in the first place. Things just happened, life moved forward, and here I am. And maybe that's part of what hit me today. You spend so much of your life just living it that you don't notice all the little changes, all the years piling up, or how the things that once seemed so far away slowly become your everyday reality. Until suddenly you're 40, looking around at your life, realizing that somehow you've made it this far.
I keep saying, on this very site, that the SNES was the peakest console there ever was (which is true, btw), and that the '90s were the golden age of gaming (which is also true, btw). But thats 30 years behind. The '90s are no longer just "the previous decade" kind of past. Theres people having kids that should not be having kids. Theres a Playstation 5 now. We used to buy GamePro magazines, we used GameFAQs to look up guides and before that we used to have a paper sheet and literally write cheat codes. My phones wasnt a computer, it was a Nokia and it was a brick that could break the floor if it fell from my hands. Im an uncle now. My grandparents were alive. All of them.
I don't know. I feel nostalgic, obviously. I guess I'm happy with where I am, but there's something bittersweet about realizing that getting here also means leaving so much time behind. So many people came and went. And also, those back pains are very real. Yall should value your backs and knees better while they still work.
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