A Final Birthday Celebration

Four hundred miles of driving in two days leaves a mark on a man my age or so some people have tried to convince me.

I tell them age is relative and follow up with the mind over matter line we have all heard many times before, “if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

We’re in the days of new world orders and sex tales you won’t believe because it is easier to believe that which we have never experienced hasn’t ever happened.

Maybe it is because there is a leader who believes the best way to respond to news he doesn’t like is by declaring it fake and maybe it is because millions of minions find it more convenient to shut down their ability to engage in critical thinking.

Regardless of the how, who, what and why we find ourselves living in interesting times and wondering what sort of place the world will look like once this moment has passed.

A Final Birthday Celebration

An acquaintance tells me I need to be the rock for my parents and siblings. I laugh and say they would say I have rocks in my head.

“Brother, you don’t know when the final birthday celebration will come. Got to make something of them.”

I appreciate the sentiment but am not interested in talking philosophy with him so I tell him I am calloused, hard and not particularly good at being soft.

“It is common for me to tell people that facts and statistics are our friend. I don’t have any misconceptions about what the current circumstances and situation are. No one wins this race.”

He tells me I ought to remember that not everyone thinks as I do and I cut him off.

“It is not a good time to tell me how to feel, behave, think or act. I won’t be kind.”

It catches him off guard and I continue.

“There are boundaries that some can cross and you aren’t part of some.”

****

I have fond memories of turning 44 but hated 45.

It was a bad year and a bad birthday.

Forty-six was and 47 were improvements and 48 was ok.

Forty-nine has been…interesting.

The greetings on Facebook started early this morning and I tried to do my best to like and or say thank you to each.

Some didn’t receive a proper response because their comments disappeared on my phone and I had trouble finding them later 0n the computer.

I wrestle with how to respond because I am uncomfortable with Facebook birthday greetings.

Uncomfortable because many of them are sterile and perfunctory. They are said out of obligation pushed by Facebook, not because people want to say them.

Except that isn’t descriptive of all nor fair. Many are said with great love and affection.

Maybe this is my own guilt speaking. Maybe the problem isn’t yours but entirely mine.

Should I place more credit in the text messages I received on my cellphone over the text on Facebook?

Does it make a difference if I say that I prefer telephone calls but not all calls from all people.

I don’t really know but I am certain that I am being hammered from multiple directions which is part of why this birthday feels so…interesting.

A time of change and transition punctuated by tremendous…stress and…hope.

Gratitude

I am blessed/cursed with the gift of loving hard.

I remind myself that it is better to feel something than nothing at all and that those who live an antiseptic and sterile life miss much.

Until I visit the doc I can comfortably say my healthy is pretty good.

There are aches, pains and assorted weird things going on that make me raise my eyebrows because I am not certain if it is a matter of mileage or something else causing them.

Dad’s cancer and miscellaneous other health issues have my attention and there are moments where I have wondered what if.

Only a fool wouldn’t consider the possibilities but only a fool would blindly accept fate too.

So I push myself to get better, do better and be better where I can.

And I do my best to maintain the proverbial attitude of gratitude for all that is good. There are people who love and care for me and I for them.

My health is good enough for the moment and with effort/luck it will remain so,

Yesterday I left the house with a major challenge to be taken on and by evening I had information that suggested it was handled.

Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you make your own luck.

There are days when you are hunted because you can take it and days when you learn you’re not the tough guy you thought you were.

The real question isn’t whether you are a hero or an ordinary man. It is whether you’re willing to take keep trying even though you have fallen every other time.

****

I appreciate you all more than you know.