Happy birthday - or is it?

Today is my birthday.  I’m 38 and wonder where all the time has gone.  It won’t be long until the big 4 0. 

Here are some of the things I have come to realise, that I wish I’d known when I was a teenager and in a hurry to grow up -

If you don’t eat like a sparrow you will put on weight – a lot.

You will still feel the same age inside as you did at 21.  When you're young and your parents say that, you laughed at them, but it's true. 

You will look in the mirror and get a fright when you realise that you no longer look 21.  Age has crept up on you unawares like the Boston Strangler. 

Wrinkles aren’t so bad when they are laughter lines, and I have laughed a lot.  Sometimes at a comedy programme, others at the ridiculousness of my life. 

You will look back on your life and realise that you had more opportunities than you ever realised.  These could be in your career, your love life or even your health.  There are doors you could have opened, and you didn't even realise they existed.

The things that you regretted at 21 are the things you will still regret today.  They haunt you and that’s made worse by the things you cannot change, but would if you could go back in time.  I have been hurt and I’m ashamed to say, I have hurt.  There are times I wish I could be the character in that Dean Koontz story Strange Highways, who is able to go back in time and take the right turning and alter what happened.

You know your youth is well behind you when the new hunk on Desperate Housewives, isn’t Bo Duke, the baby-faced, blonde heartthrob from Dukes of Hazzard, the show you loved as a child, no it’s the son of the heartthrob you loved as a child. 

And, one of your favourite movies from your distant days on the young team, Back to the Future, is celebrating its 25^th anniversary.  When it first came out, it was the big teen film of the time. 

I never thought I would get old, but old age is something that creeps up at you like the drunken buffoon at a party and it seriously sucks.    

I guess though, it could have been a lot worse.  It could have been the grandson of John Schneider!