Forty, Without the Filter: Notes on Getting Older, Getting Real, and Getting a Life
I turned forty and didn’t post a thirst trap.
No #ThisIs40 montage. No sunset drone shot, no slo-mo ocean plunge, no caption about “blessings.” I also didn’t acquire the standard-issue props apparently required for adult credibility: a partner on my arm, a key to a dream home, or a baby wearing knit booties that look like tiny avocados. It’s just me. A very early alarm. A gym bag that smells faintly of effort. Friends who text back. Work I’m proud of. A nervous system that finally trusts me most days.
If that sounds underwhelming, stick around. It’s the best thing I’ve ever built.
Three lives and a reset button
My life has had eras. There was hockey kid me - captain, scholarship, Saturdays in cold air chasing a ball with a tribe who knew me by the way I moved, not the way I presented. Then Sydney socialite me - the guy perpetually “out,” photographed next to canapés, collecting acquaintances and hangovers like they were proof of belonging. And then the hard chapter - the long grey corridor when grief stacked up and the lights went out. I called it “coping.” It was escape. Numbness masquerading as personality.
The pivot was not cinematic. No epiphany under a stormy sky. Just a sentence - “I’m not okay” - said out loud to someone who didn’t flinch. A hospital stay that was less punishment than pause. A recommitment to simple, repeatable things: movement, sleep, therapy, food that doesn’t fight me back, telling the truth even when my voice shakes. It turned out you don’t cure a life; you reassemble it. Slowly. Kindly. In daylight.
The midlife report card
Forty is weird. The world tries to hand you a checklist and a megaphone. “Announce your learnings! Monetise your insight!” But the most interesting thing about this age, for me, is the private shift. The volume in my head is lower. My appetite for performing is… gone. I don’t want to be the life of the party; I want a life I don’t need to escape from.
Some things I know now:
Clarity beats intensity. I used to swing for the fences: grand makeovers, big promises, bigger comedowns. Now I change small levers and keep them changed. Bedtime is the new personality. So is breakfast.
Intimacy is rhythm, not spectacle. I used to wait for connection to feel cinematic. Now I put recurring coffees in the diary and let familiarity do its quiet work. Text–call–see isn’t romantic; it’s how trust grows.
Service is the shortest route out of my own head. When I aim straight at “feeling better,” I can spiral; when I aim at “being useful,” joy sneaks up from the side.
I don’t need a character to be liked. Sobriety stripped a lot of costume out of my life. What’s left is lighter to carry and harder to lose.
The case for a smaller stage and earlier mornings
Here’s a fun midlife plot twist: I love getting up at 4:30 a.m. I’m not proposing a cult. I’m saying my mornings are the closest thing I’ve found to medicine you don’t need a prescription for. Move your body - hard enough to breathe louder. Let light hit your eyes before your phone hits your hand.
I used to think early rising was for monks and productivity bros. But there’s decent science (and better common sense) behind it: the first hours are when your brain is most cooperative, and the world hasn’t yet started its performance review. One deliberate morning shifts the tone of the whole day - and when you stack enough of those, your life starts to change shape without a TED Talk.
I’m not special. I’m consistent. That’s the whole trick.
The romance question (and my honest answer)
I keep getting asked if I’m “seeing anyone,” as if my life is an unfinished sentence waiting for a plus-one to complete it. I’ve spent years chasing that plot line, and I’m not doing it right now. Not because love is off the table, but because I’ve stopped letting it be the table. Dating apps feel like a casino where the house always wins, and I don’t want my nervous system perpetually auditioning for strangers.
Will I date again? Probably. But I want love to meet me in a life that’s already dense with meaning: friends who know my Tuesday mood, a body that works because I make positive deposits, work that makes me useful, a community that feels like a living room not a theatre. If a relationship arrives, great - it gets a chair at the table. Not the throne.
What I’m proud of (that doesn’t photograph well)
The most valuable things I built in my thirties don’t make good content:
Repair muscles. Not being right is cheaper than being ruptured. “Hey, last week felt off - can we reset?” is a sentence I now use. Often.
Boring bravery. I do unremarkable things at the same times: therapy, training, writing, sleep. It’s thrilling in the least cinematic way.
Soft boundaries with hard edges. I say no faster and yes slower. I leave early and don’t apologise for wanting my morning more than another round.
Gratitude, but make it grounded
I almost didn’t throw a fortieth anything. Parties felt like a younger man’s proof-of-life. But I’m glad I did. It wasn’t a brand activation. It was a room full of people who watched me stumble, stayed anyway, and now get the easier version of me: the guy who doesn’t need to be introduced as “Brodie from X.” If I’ve been an inconsistent friend along the way, I’m sorry. I’m trying to make amends with calendar entries and things I can actually see through, not speeches full of empty words.
I’m also grateful for work that stretched me - the kind you feel in your legs at the end of the week. The last couple of years gave me opportunities I might not see again for a decade. They also gave me colleagues who became co-conspirators in care. That’s rare. I know it.
So… what is forty?
Forty, for me, is dropping the mask without dropping standards. It’s wanting fewer people to like me and more people to trust me. It’s being more interested in the texture of my days than the optics of my milestones. It’s waking up at 4:30 a.m. to protect a life I actually like living at 4:30 p.m.
It’s also admitting I don’t have a five-year plan so much as a five-habit loop: move, make, serve, see friends, sleep. When I do those, the rest organises itself. When I don’t, the old temptations - performance, avoidance, “optimising” my way out of feelings - start knocking again. The difference now is I answer the door with shoes on and say, “Not today.”
I used to think adulthood was a reveal: one day you open a door and there’s your “real life,” waiting, candlelit and finished. Turns out, you build it. Chair by chair. Boundary by boundary. Lap by lap. Text by honest text. It’s slower than I wanted and steadier than I imagined.
So no, I won’t be posting a topless beach pic under a manifesto about aging backwards. I’m not trying to audition for the algorithm’s approval. I’m trying to be the person my younger self needed and my older self will thank. If that sounds like a quiet life, good. Quiet is where you can hear your friends laughing, your heart working, your feet on the path you chose.
Here’s to the next decade: fewer filters, more finish lines; fewer announcements, more breakfasts; less chasing, more choosing. If love shows up, it’ll find me with coffee already made and a life with room to sit down. If it doesn’t, I’m still not waiting. This is forty - not a trailer for what’s next, but the feature.