Happy Freaking Birthday
Today is my birthday. I'm in my mid-thirties now, and with this age I have found myself becoming aware of many things I used to ignore. It's not just the instinctive wedding-band check anymore; I've been doing that for years. Rather, it is the simpler, more profound things that occupy most of my idle thoughts these days.
When I go home to spend a few days with my family, the experience is at once deeply comforting and worrying, because I always think that next time might be the time it's not the same. The most mundane things take on a larger meaning now: walking barefoot at sunset on the beach with my folks; lying on the floor nose-to-nose with the dog; falling asleep staring out the window at the tall grass in the distance; sitting around the dinner table with a glass of wine, talking about everything and nothing; and so on. I try so hard to appreciate it consciously, to live in the moment, to inhale it all somehow, that I might take it with me on my long journey back to my new home. All the while, I can't ever seem to shake the feeling that I never know when things are going to change, and not necessarily for the better. Change is inevitable, but it's hard to accept sometimes. Inevitable, true, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
When I look in the mirror in the morning, I notice that my once-lonely gray hairs seem to have more and more company now (great for them, socially speaking; not so great for me). In the swimming pool, what once would have been barely a warmup set is now the entire workout, and I'm sore for days afterward. I rarely sleep well. I regularly receive emails from friends with pictures of their kids, and I've also had to put a few condolence cards in the mail.
If these thoughts came only in the night it would be easy to dismiss them, but I think about this stuff all the time. You can control what you say and do, but it is far more difficult to control the thoughts that run through your head at any given moment. I wish that last bit were easier.
Happy birthday to me.
When I go home to spend a few days with my family, the experience is at once deeply comforting and worrying, because I always think that next time might be the time it's not the same. The most mundane things take on a larger meaning now: walking barefoot at sunset on the beach with my folks; lying on the floor nose-to-nose with the dog; falling asleep staring out the window at the tall grass in the distance; sitting around the dinner table with a glass of wine, talking about everything and nothing; and so on. I try so hard to appreciate it consciously, to live in the moment, to inhale it all somehow, that I might take it with me on my long journey back to my new home. All the while, I can't ever seem to shake the feeling that I never know when things are going to change, and not necessarily for the better. Change is inevitable, but it's hard to accept sometimes. Inevitable, true, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
When I look in the mirror in the morning, I notice that my once-lonely gray hairs seem to have more and more company now (great for them, socially speaking; not so great for me). In the swimming pool, what once would have been barely a warmup set is now the entire workout, and I'm sore for days afterward. I rarely sleep well. I regularly receive emails from friends with pictures of their kids, and I've also had to put a few condolence cards in the mail.
If these thoughts came only in the night it would be easy to dismiss them, but I think about this stuff all the time. You can control what you say and do, but it is far more difficult to control the thoughts that run through your head at any given moment. I wish that last bit were easier.
Happy birthday to me.
posted by Biff at 23:10
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