🎧 You can catch me presenting this week’s episode of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme called: The New Good Life — Leyla Kazim is uprooting her life to Portugal to grow her own food, but does she have the skills to be successful?
(I mean seriously, do I?? 😅)
Listen via BBC Sounds, or wherever you usually get your podcasts from.
Hi! This is Leyla from A Day Well Spent, a newsletter about purposeful living.
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I have a couple of rather large life milestones in my immediate future
In two weeks time, not only are my husband and I uprooting our lives and leaving London for rural Portugal to embark on a new adventure that will involve building a house and living off the land.
But on that same weekend, I also turn 40.
What better way to mark the start of this next 10 year cycle with a seismic shift that turns our lives completely on their heads, right?!
I can’t imagine I’ll be forgetting this birthday any time soon.
On the day itself, I’ll most likely be knee deep in cardboard boxes and paper shaving packing void fill.
But I’ll be celebrating it properly with friends and family at a four day wine, food, music and culture festival about 6 weeks later in September, which I’m very much looking forward to.
How am I feeling about leaving my 30s behind? Actually, really quite fine. My 40th hasn’t crept up on me and I’ve been looking forward to meeting it where I am.
I am mostly feeling quite peaceful in mind, body and spirit. If not frazzled by the to do list that doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter, as well as living amongst chaos and cardboard.
This has been exacerbated by all of the socialising my husband and I have been doing of late, trying to squeeze in seeing friends and family before we go. It means we keep putting off all of the tasks.
I’m sure it will be fine (?)
I also feel pretty good that this big birthday is being acknowledged in such a meaningful way with this new beginning. We could have chosen any weekend to move, but I purposely chose the one of my 40th.
Almost like I’m permanently etching into my memory what a significant page turn in my life this is. A different kind of birthday celebration.
I also feel eternally grateful and fortunate that I am even here, in a position where I am able to look ahead at a new decade with a little self-doubt but mostly excitement.
I do not take this for granted.
Having said that, I know people can get a bit down about age milestones.
So I thought it might be nice to collate some wisdoms from people I know and admire who are 40 or over, about this specific decade of life, whether they have just entered it or are well beyond it.
I asked a bunch of friends what are / were some of the best things about being in your 40s, unexpected joys from those years and what people can look forward to about entering this decade of life.
Below are all the very generous responses. There is so much lived experience in these words. I hope you enjoy them. I really did!
And they’ve really helped me gain some perspective on what’s to come.
Thank you again to all of you who contributed, you guys are the best.
brb just turning my world upside down
Because of all the chaos and turbulence that will accompany all the packing and removals and travel and unpacking and finding a new rhythm and learning a new language —
— and because most of us will hopefully be spending less time looking at our screens and more time enjoying each other’s company over the summer holidays —
— I thought it would be sensible for A Day Well Spent to also take a summer break.
So you will next receive a column from me in just a few weeks when I will (hopefully??) start to feel at least a bit settled in both a brand new country and decade of life. And I’ll still be dipping in and out of Instagram and Substack Notes in the meantime.
I can’t wait to share how it’s all going with you! And perhaps also know a few more words of Portuguese by then.
If you’re after some reading material about purposeful living in the meantime, please enjoy the full A Day Well Spent archive of 190+ articles, at your disposal.
And for those who have been saving Pathways to read on your holidays, I really hope you love it! Please let me know what you think!
Big love to all of you and I hope you have a gorgeous, heart-swelling summer.
Wish me luck – I’ll see you on the other side!
Wisdoms from 40 and beyond
Q: What are / were some of the best things about being in your 40s, unexpected joys from those years and what can people look forward to about entering this decade of life?
If you would like to share your own answer to this question, we would all love to hear it! Please do so in a comment below:
‘Looking back, the most striking thing about my forties wasn't the decade itself — it was how much energy I squandered worrying about turning forty when I was, in truth, still so young.
Like many women, I proclaimed at forty that I finally knew who I was. But that revelation actually came at fifty, and I suspect it will arrive again at sixty.’
— , NYT bestselling author making a new life in Italy
‘Give yourself time. Your 40s aren’t the finish line – they’re the tuning stage, a new beginning.
Let go of the pressure to have it all figured out. Be patient and kind to yourself, and trust that your strengthened intuition – that wonderful inner voice – is finally becoming the loudest voice in your psyche.’
— Curtis Holder, artist
‘Being alive still. A close friend died of cancer in her early 30s, and she wanted to live so badly. I've had a health scare that I thought might kill me. And through others, I know of many people who've died suddenly or through illness and it comes a point where you realise life isn't a given, it's not a right.
It's a massive fucking privilege and yet in the West, capitalism has us thinking that to age is somehow negative, that we should reverse ageing and lie about how long we've been here — while all around the world people die hoping for more life.
No — when I get to wake up yet again every single morning I feel lucky. And to reach 40: 40 springs, 40 summers, 40 birthdays, 40 years of joys to celebrate and hardships to learn from, that is being incredibly fortunate.’
— Melissa Thompson, chef and writer