Remember When 40 Was Old?

I can still remember my first days as a twenty six year old optometrist. I was young and green. I remember examining patients who had turned 40 and were losing their near vision. The complaints rang in my ears daily. Everything from, "My arms are too short" to "I can't see to thread my needle". I remember vividly looking at these 40 somethings and thinking under my breath, "These folks are old."

Now that I have reached the pinnacle in life we call THE BIG FOUR ZERO and surpassed it by five years, I am looking back at 40 and thinking it is not quite as old as I once thought. In fact, I look at forty as young these days. The aches and pains of a forty-five year old are much more persistent than they were at forty. The memory and hearing is not quite as sharp as it was then. The wrinkles on the face are a little more pronounced and the mid section is carrying a little more weight these days. And the eyes, the old wonderful eyes, they are not quite as good as they were back then. No line progressive bifocal lenses hide the fact that I can not see up close. Seems as though a lot of things have changed since I became old.