There is a saying that life begins at forty.  I can’t really say if that is true or false, seeing as I am just starting out.  But it got me thinking about my parents…where were they when they were 40?  Could that shed any light on the situation?

My dad was 40 in 1986.  That meant that I was 16 and going into my junior year of high school.  Within 10 years of that date, all of his kids (4 of them) would have moved out and he would be an empty nester.  I left within 2 years.  Within 3 years, I didn’t even come back home for summers.

Contrast that to my life at 40.  My kids are 4, 6, and 8.   In 10 years, Lars will be ready to go to college.  Leif will just be entering high school.  I’ll still have 8 years of college to pay for before it’s all done.  That means I’m going to have to work a lot harder and longer if I hope to contribute to their education.

I think people used to equate life with the kids finally moving out.  I don’t look at life quite that way.  For me, life is about being with family.  It’s about exploring and seeing the world again through the eyes of my children.  It’s about spending quality time biking around the city, or seeing a baseball game, or travelling to a new destination.

So for me, life goes on at 40.  I hope it goes on this way for a while.