Darren turns 40-years old!
It's Darren's birthday today and he just wants to give a heads up to anyone turning 40 soon. Specifically men, because he can only really talk for them; being as he's a man...
When men turn 40 it's the first time we can start complaining about our bodies with the same kind of conviction as women do.
As a man, your body changes drastically when you turn 40. It isn't a slight metabolic change, it isn't a gradual decline. The difference in your physiognomy from 39 to 40 is as contrasting as day and night, black and white, good and bad.
Most notably, I had ironing board abs my whole life right up until 40, and over night I grew this floatation device around my midriff. Unlike women who have their whole lives to acclimatise to the anomalies of their biology, men are lulled into this false sense of anatomical superiority until 40 - then wham; the playing field is levelled.
Going to the loo is a brand new experience because that flow that you enjoyed for four decades is literally cut in half, over night. Imagine you're watering the garden and someone stands on the hose pipe, that loss of pressure is what you experience when you hit 40.
You don't heal as quickly as you used to; something the likes of Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha are learning as we speak.
Before 40 you stub your toe and you experience a little discomfort for maybe a day. After 40 you stub your toe and you change your gait for the rest of your life.
You learn to become a lot more cautious, so much so that after 40 when you get up from the couch to get the remote you stop - look left - look right - then proceed to the coffee table.
The big four-oh is remarkable! You round, you leak and you don't heal.
So happy birthday to me, and thank goodness there will be a lot fewer than many more in this failing frame.