Mid-Life-What?

As he approaches middle age, Olly Mann ponders the randomness of life, ageing and sports cars

- Olly Mann

HOW DID YOUR mid-life crisis arrive? An affair with the milkman? A Lamborghini? A three-week bender in Las Vegas? I haven’t done any of these things—although I’ve only just turned 40, so who knows, perhaps they’re yet to come.

I didn’t think I was bothered about looking youthful, or ticking off my bucket-list, or sowing my wild euphemisms. As a kid, I actively wanted to be middle-aged: the diary I kept when I was 13 records my school computer password as I6Want7To8Grow6Up. Indeed, I remember aspiring to be 40: it seemed the perfect age to be! Old enough to have achieved financial independence, young enough to remain physically fit. Old enough to be excused from nightclubs, young enough that my politics would not yet have turned full Fascist.

But now I’m here… I don’t know… the half-way thing is playing on my mind a bit. My dad died at 70. His dad died at 62. So, being optimistic, I’ve reached the half-way point. All the food I’ve ever eaten, all the sunsets I’ve ever seen, all the live gigs I’ve ever attended, all the laughs I’ve ever laughed… I’ve eaten up about half of my allowance. That’s sobering.