Happy Birthday to Me

Sage, with a farmer's tan, taking a break while fishing and canoeing the Fox River, July 2006.

Sometime today I’ll begin my downhill run. At an hour that escapes me (I forgot to look at the clock in the hospital), the engine that’s my body will have crested a major hill and begin chugging ever closer to the century mark and ever further from my birth. I can’t believe I’m 50! Most days I don’t feel 35. The only marker of my age is in my musical taste. I enjoy classic rock which wasn’t classic when I started listening to it. Oh yeah, then there is the issue of the receding hair line. Where did all the years go? I’m not so sure, but I have had fun and may even reach retirement age with enough of a pension that I won’t have to greet at Walmart. Of course, that might all change if social security goes belly up, but it looks like that’s one program Georgie Boy won’t get to screw up during his reign. It’s hard to think that in just 14 years, my daughter will be through high school and college. Maybe then I can retire. I’m not sure I can ever completely give up working; once I decide to cash in the day job, I might decide to do something fun like tend bar at a ski resort and write in my blog when I’m either pour drinks and listening to sad tales or shooting down black diamonds.

Not much planned for the birthday. Tonight I’m teaching. My employees are taking me out to lunch. Today is my day to swim in the gym; I’m not ready to punch in 5-0 on the machines they have there.

When I turned 25, my parents were living in Japan and I wrote to my mother, telling her how old I felt. Her response was natural as she wrote back telling me just how old I made her feel. I don’t think I’ll do that this year, although she’d probably quickly forget.