Quote of the Day: 40 means Diamonds

I also find it hard to deal with the fact that … almost forty, the age at which your options start to diminish because you are more or less locked into a life path. I read somewhere – and one of the signs of getting older is that I can no long remember where – that life is shaped like a diamond. At the start, your choices are few. They get greater and greater with each year until forty or so, when the choices you’ve made start to limit the ones you can make – until you die, which is general as much of a choice as being born is.

I don’t find this bleak, actually. I’m fairly content with the choices I’ve made and the ones I’m not at ease with are minor. The knowledge that my diamond is getting narrower just makes me more careful about my time and likely to enjoy where I am more. Besides, I’m tired of deciding and, in a way, welcome having less big stuff to think about. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

SweaterQuest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously by Adrienne Martini, Pages 147-148