This is 40
I turn 40 soon. It's an age that I can easily recall my parents being; in fact, my mother would have been not much older than 40 around the time her father died, which I remember all too well, as I was 11 or 12. It felt like she was about the right sort of age to have a parent die. My parents, then, felt like fully settled figures, with a car, reliable jobs, a mortgage, three kids - these markers of grown-upness and stability that I have barely begun to match. I only found out what a clutch pedal is two months ago. My parents' friends were the same age as them, or older, and they smoked, and didn't interact with children much, except in a fairly distanced way; these friends also had mortgages and cars etc etc. There was something unplayful about many of these people - who were usually fun and intelligent and witty in their adult way - that marked them out as being, by this stage of their life, fully formed. Of course, I know that part of this is my childlike projection onto