hey zeit,

i completely empathize with you're plight having recently turned 40. i've been through so much soul searching about lost opportunities, relationships that i frittered away, retracing the steps of my lost youth, regretting bridges burnt etc...

moreover i wonder whether it's possible to really feel love with anything like the intensity i once did. i pretty much lost interest in dating when the novelty wore off and i sensed that i was just going through the motions, soul-less dates that never flared into anything that really moved me or made much sense. internet dating is especially corrosive - i felt disillusioned with the disposable nature of rotisseries dating and the ensuing emotional diminishing returns from burn out.    

i've increasingly drawing a distinction between women around 30 whom are still pretty upbeat (though they might think they're a bit jaded) and those in the their late 30s. The latter share some of my own drop off in youthful enthusiasm but chirpiness doesn't appeal much anymore especially in the face of my own sangfroid.

instead i think one of the features i increasingly find most attractive in women is their positiveness and practicality with getting older; their ability to age free of the corrosive regret that i'm often haunted by; tendency to take great care of themselves often with yoga and a very healthy diet etc...; all the while i myself seem to be slowly slipping in the opposite direction.

40 is still pretty young especially living in the city, working in a creative field, reading quite a lot, watching lots of movies, travelling quite a bit, still being pretty athletic, taking reasonably good care of myself. i think i'm actually closer to a good relationship in this frame of mind/point in my life because perhaps for the first time i really believe i need to be in a good caring relationship to survive and prosper - rather than instinctively fear a relationship will limit and compromise me.

there are men at 30 you are old - married with kids, living in the suburbs, working boring jobs, subsisting on processed food.

I must be having a certain kind of day where my chipper enthusiasm is wearing me like a cheap vinyl miniskirt wears a fifty year old waitress. After 37 yrs. on the planet, here's my comment:  You said it, brother.  

[Happy dvaleriey returns soon to negate this interjection of bitter realism]  

hey , you still have something left in the tank but...

it is NOT pretty. you try and try and try and in the and you are just old and no amount of movies, books, yoga and whatever going to change that. you Will find yourself liking coffee this way and NOT that way, you will like things YOUR way.

sorry, welcome to the club!

kind of, why?

wow you good!

Consider the alternative. 40 ain't no picnic, but the other option- death- don't look so great either.

My advice on getting older:

Never look back. Never reminisce, revisit, return, or remember. Regret is death, and nostalgia is cancer of the soul.

Confront yourself with the prospect of your own annihilation, and you will thrive; you will not be able to strive until you appreciate the gravity of your peril.

AHG is right, what's your problem Zeit; why so miserable?  You need to take a page out of her book.  you really need to try some incessant self-congratulation, disguised by only the thinnest veneer of insincere self-deprecation--it seems to work well for her.  Come on, buck up and give it a shot!

Had the pleasure of meeting Z on the street yesterday; he seemed pretty happy.  (I guess he'd forgotten for a moment how fuckin' old he is.)  And, Z, "rally" is definitely the right word; for me, 50 is going to be coming into view, and I'm reaching for one last, big rally (one that doesn't include the thought, "This job should be able to carry me down my remaining decades to my death...").

On my 40th birthday, I had the profound good fortune to hear Victoria Williams' play the song Century Plant, which has a chorus that includes the following question: "Hey, do want to come out and play the game?  It's never too late...."