I’m writing this today, because tomorrow, I’ll be too busy being showered with love and admiration to bother writing about it. It takes a special kind of narcissism to write about one’s birthday the day before. Thankfully for all of us, I’m that kind of narcissist.
I will be 49 tomorrow. This will be the paragraph where I say things like; “Where did all the time go?” “How did this happen?” and “Time, SLOW DOWN!” Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time to get into some nitty gritty.
I went and googled “What happened in 1971 and it was in a word, underwhelming. I mean maybe not for 1971, Apollo 14, NASDAQ and AMRTAK created, Disneyworld opens, blah, blah, blah. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but more than this.
Damn near 50 years have passed, and I think I am officially getting old. I mean, I still feel (and act) like a kid, so how can I also say things like “that was 40 years ago”. It’s disturbing, and you’re not going to hear the end of it.
I’m still clawing for the past. To hold on. Some will say, “quit living in the past" or “be more present”. It’s not that I’m living back there, it’s that I cherish memory. I really do. It’s who we are and what we’ve become. While I understand completely that my view of the 80’s and 90’s is built upon how I want to believe it happened, there’s also an opportunity to appreciate what I’ve lived through without the inherent real life angst. This stripping away of the bad allows me to appreciate the good with a level of wholesomeness and appreciation that I couldn’t have while I was in it. There’s nothing wrong with that.
To the high school kids I interact with daily, I am sure it can feel and look ridiculous. They’ll see in 30 years or so too. I hope.
Every year around my birthday I think of age defying things I want to accomplish. Some sort of grasping for straws of my youth? Maybe. Or maybe it’s because I still want to learn to ollie a skateboard or run a sub 20 min 5k. To be a better guitar player, and to write another albums worth of songs. There’s nothing wrong with that. With wanting to learn and do things we haven’t. Living only ends when we quit trying.
This is the part of the post where I ask for the things that I want for my birthday. Really, nothing (besides that skateboarding prowess). I have a great wife, kids and mother. More real friends than I deserve, decnet health, great looks, ample hair, an A-team van and two dogs that mostly ignore me. I think I’d like another dog for my wife to take care of for my birthday, but that seems like a bit much. On June 25th, 2020, things are pretty good.
I could ask for world peace and for all the effed up things in the world to be solved, but we all know that the void those things created would just get backfilled with more garbage so I’ll just let them play their course and try to be a better person. I do wish people wouldn’t be so stupid. But that’s also unfixable.
No for this birthday I am mostly content.
Coffee, dogs, training, family, music.
If you really want to get me something, cash, Jucifer, and Mike and Ike’s will do
Here’s to sliding into 50 and doing a bitchin ollie.
#hugsandhi5s