Nothing seemed as scary as waking up at 40 and realizing that I had not lived a very courageous life.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There's no point living at my age with many ingrained great fears.
When I walked out of the seminary, I was 31, but I was like a scared, frightened kid. I had no place to live, no license, no clothes. I was just a lost soul.
Forty freaked me out. I didn't see it coming. My life was in a state of chaos - I was moving jobs and moving house - and it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced, so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis.
I was afraid of not living up to what people expected me to be.
When I first decided I was going to have a go at writing a book - and really, it was a mid-life crisis - I was 39. I was in business with my husband; we had a very busy lifestyle and quite a hectic schedule running this flourishing business in travel, and I found myself waking up and realising that I didn't want to do this anymore.
When I turned 40, subconsciously, life was a blank sheet. Before, it was disjointed, and I was very displaced and quite mad, but it was a brilliant time. Everyone thinks I must have been unhappy.
Life changed at 40 for me, as predicted by my acting teacher when I was leaving college. I became more hirable and more interesting... I'm not sure why.
From nine years old, I lived with fear. I saw our neighbours disappearing. I was scared that I would come home from school and my parents would not be there.
I remember when I was 33 or 34, it was devastating because I realized I wasn't a kid anymore. The great thing about 40 was that I really felt like I had life experience and knew what I was doing now.