"Oh no! I am over forty!"

One day at my cash register, a woman came and bought some beer. She was quite beautiful, with large violet eyes and exquisite white hair.  When my scanner read the UPC code on the item, the machine asked me, "Is the customer under forty?"  Accordingly and correctly I hit the "no" button.  The woman sighed a little and lamented, "I am well over forty, unfortunately."

"Why is that unfortunate?" I queried with naivete.

With a bitter chuckle she replied, "Because it means that I am old."

I smiled reassuringly and said, "It means that you are lucky. It means that you have survived the great and terrible adventure that is life."  I added with a wink, "Besides, forty is the new thirty and thirty is the new twenty. What with the life expectancy rate expanding, forty does not even mean middle-aged anymore."

"You can say that because you are like 22 years old," she chuckled as she left.

Twenty-seven actually. I said silently to myself. Twenty-seven, and suffering from an illness that has been known to kill people. Twenty-seven, and a survivor of child abuse, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and currently living with Borderline Personality Disorder. Yes, I can say that every single day of your life is a gift, that your life does not become less important after your first gray hair, not because my life has not involved significant suffering or discomfort yet...but because every single day of my short life has been something for which I have had to fight.

Do not misunderstand me, I am all too painfully aware of the age-ism prevalent in today's world.  Just in case a 21st century person living in a first world country did not have enough to handle with Marxism and Hedonism. In the wealthiest, healthiest and most entertainment-glutted nations in the world, every average Joe on the street has to broadcast how healthy he is, what expensive toys he owns and how hard he partied last night and whether or not he got laid.  Ludicrous.
Then he gets some wrinkles around his eyes, the booze guzzling and four AM munchies have started to show around his middle, and he gets rejected by a couple college-age girls...and then he groans when the girl at the checkout counter does not ask to see his ID.  Then he starts to enter a "crisis" where he wonders where all of his youth and energy went and what he has done with the first fifty years of his life and whether or not his life has any meaning. Now he has to buy bigger toys. He needs to make more money. His dates and mistresses have to stay shamefully young.  For the man who is poorer? Well, all he can really do is keep drinking the cheap, rotten excuse for American beer, go play at the casinos when he can, and when the twenty-something at the checkout hands him his receipt and says "Have a nice day," in the tone that means, "Never in a million years, Buddy," just go home.  Just go home and regret that you can't be young forever.

There are cancer patients who know how to live.
There are children in war torn countries who may never live to see their 20th birthday.
In India there is a catastrophic infant fatality rate.
In the US alone we have lost MILLIONS of children to the tragedy of abortion. These did not even live to see the light of day.

There are nine year old girls forced into "marriages" and eleven year old boys being kidnapped and trained to steal, kill and be killed. It would be a little difficult to explain to them this first world, 21st century malady called "Being Over Forty."

Growing up in the environment that I did, I can safely tell you that youth can be hellish. Not according to the natural order of things, but when youth is surrounded by violence, terror, tears and instability, yes, quite hellish. Every moment that I have spent freed from that environment has been a miracle. I am grateful for it. I know why 10% of people who suffer from BPD end in suicide, yet I also know that I will never be one of them.
I have survived too much, come too far and labored to long to give up now.
And you have too. That is what it means when you reach that milestone. It means "I made it! I survived! I have been given a great gift! I am strong. My life is precious. The lines around my eyes are beautiful. The touch of gray on my sideburns bespeak the wisdom I have acquired. I am over forty. Thanks be to God. Hurray for me!"

I look forward to reaching that milestone someday myself. Every new birthday I have, I get a little more excited. You see, when I was a child, I always expected that I would die very young. Twenty years ago, I never would have expected to live this long to celebrate so much. Deo Gratias.