standing on the doorstep
So here I am...it's less than 5 hours until my 40th birthday. As I sit here at my computer, it's 100F (damn, it's hot), my fiancee is out shopping, my son is home with his mother and I'm sorta getting a bit nervous. The question is...why? Why would I be nervous about a birthday? Why would I be apprehensive about a day that is supposed to celebrate me?
For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a little about what this milestone means to me, trying to figure out exactly how I feel about it all. If you went back twenty years or so, and I asked people who knew me then to name my most distinctive qualities, “fear of strange food” would have ranked #1 with a bullet. I was notorious for eating only the most whitebread items in the supermarket: Wise Potato Chips, Cap'n Crunch, Coca Cola...you know--all the good stuff! “Foreign” foods with even the hint of spice were out of the question. In college I did finally get the inevitable taste for Chinese; though even then the joke was that, no matter what the cuisine, I would inevitably track down the dish that was closest to hamburger and order that forever after.
Yet here I am today...ever so close to 40 years old...and I find that my horizons have been broadened exponentially. In college, I wanted to get my degree, teach and change the world. I was a bright young man with a big attitude, at the top of my game, with big ideas and a whole lot of years to accomplish them stretching ahead of me. And now I look back on that idea and laugh at how naive it was. I sure didn't know how quickly things could unravel, didn't know how dark the next ten years would actually be. How easily things could change with a few problems and a lot of worry. Life sometimes jumps up and stands in the way of one's big fabulous plans, doesn't it?
And as I type, I inch ever so much closer to the milestone that sends many men like me to the nearest Chevrolet dealership, drooling over the bright red Corvette in the showroom. I realize that certainly don’t feel, look, dress and/or act like a 40 year old (many of you would say I act like a 4 year old!). In fact, I'm not here to write thoughts about how terrible things have turned out for me. They're not terrible. I'm healthier than I've ever been, I have a good career, a terrific girl, and a very comfortable life. But things are much different now than they were for me at 35...even 30. I live a quieter, more settled, more introspective, more routine, and yes, more boring life.
So why am I nervous? I guess I'm nervous about one thing...I don't want to screw this part of my life up. While things for me are quite nice, I have this odd fear of making a horrible mistake that will really ruin the way things are going. And since my time on this sphere is growing shorter by the second, I really don't want to do that. Therefore, I take my time with things these days. I want to enjoy the experiences I'm having (both the good and the bad). I want to...well...live well.
Therefore it's time to end this little lament about the nice round number of 40. I'm not so sure I see the big deal really. In fact, the last time I was at that Chevy garage, I didn't even notice a red Corvette in the showroom. I was too busy checking out my fiancee in the tight top. That was far more interesting to me, anyway.
