What does it mean to be 40? I have almost exactly one year to think that through. By 40, most of us are married, have kids, are set into our careers, and are doing all of the things we’ve been taught to do in order to succeed to live the lives our parents only wished they could have…right?

But why 40? I guess because most of us are scared to death of death, 40 seems to be that the mid-point between life and the uncertainty of how long we’re going to be here, so like most things we trying and predict the unpredictable.

It’s while thinking about these uncertainties, that I have a few questions.

What pushes some of us to push back against the norm, and try our hardest at creating the lives we want to live even if it means disappointing those that are closest to us? What if those that are closest to us aren’t interested in pushing us because they were never pushed to do anything significant with their lives. What exactly does it mean to be of significance when it comes to living our small little mostly insignificant lives?

All of the answers aren’t lost here. My grandparents never attended college. My dad has had the same job since he was 17 years old. My mom worked retail until my brother and I were old enough where she could escape and go back to college. She graduated, and worked herself into a lucrative career, but that was short lived. Now medically retired and living off of her husband and our petty social security system, she still seems to be searching for something that perhaps we’re all looking for.

What do you do when your parents are alcoholics and have no way of respectfully ushering you into adulthood? What do you do when your parents aren’t alcoholics but everything they learned was learned by alcoholics? It’s simple really, you do the best you can.

You’re probably wondering where I am going with this, and I don’t blame you. I also wonder where I am going with this, and the truth is, I don’t know. It’s hard to understand what direction you’re going in, when you’ve never been directly taught what direction you should be going in. I was never pushed in any sort of direction. Growing up, I was an athlete, an artist, and a subpar student. Now I’m a stay-at-home-dad, artist, and fumbling entrepreneur. Most of all I think I think I am just someone still searching for acceptance, looking for someone to tell me that they’re proud of my creative endeavors and output. Surrounded by a veil of pretending to not care what anyone thinks, while caring more than anyone will ever know.

I don’t think that’s a part of turning 40 though, I think that’s a part of being human.