So here is anufur burfday – 46, who’d a thunk it?

So I am getting ready to turn 46 tomorrow, seems hard to believe really. Seems like it was just yesterday, we were sitting around in our teenage years on the stoop in Millerstown, drinking beers through a straw and smoking pot. Don’t get me wrong , I DO NOT miss those days and would not go back and relive any of them. But they, along with lots of other life experiences have brought me to where I am today – one day shy of 46 years old. I am the age my Dad was when I was that hellion of child drinking beer through a straw and smoking pot, and that makes me laugh. Think about how your life has guided you to where you are, my Dad was guided by his life to where he was. I could not imagine ever being friends with my Dad at that age. Maybe it was different time, maybe it was a different place but I can not get my head around what it would have been like to been a friend of my Dad’s.

I am very content with my station in life, where I am personally, where I am professionally and where I am as a citizen of this great Nation. All of the experiences of my life have lead me to where i am, some were good, some were great, some were bad and some were very bad. But all of them, together, have lead me here, to writing this blog about turning 46. I really had no idea what I was going to write about when I opened this word doc, the first thing that popped into my head was the fact that tomorrow, I have a birthday.

The sunrise tomorrow will be the 16,801st (including the 11 February 29th’s) since my arrival back in 1965, it seems like a lot of revolutions but really if compared to geologic time it is but a blip. Consider that is has been 85,000 sun ups and sundowns since the United States of America declared our independence from Great Britain. There have been 750,000 since Julius Ceaser was killed on the senate floor. Since homo Erectus was wondering the savanna’s of eastern Africa on his way to the top of food chain, there have been 474,500,000 sunrises and sunsets. And it there has been a staggering 237,250,000,000 sunrises since the dinosaur’s were roaming the earth. So a paltry 16,801 is but a blip on the scale on time.

There have also been 11 leap years since I was born, I wonder what it must be like to have your birthday on a leap year, how weird would it be to be able to say, yep – I am 11 years old today but actually be much older. I suspect I could have had fun with that if my burfday was February 29th. There have been 8 presidents since my arrival, I have voted in elections for 5 of them. Today I have 132 Facebook friends, I have met all but 3 of them, and I look forward to meeting those folks one day.

I realize that I most likely have had more days here than I have left, and you know what – that is fine with me. I am not sure I want to live to be older than 92 anyway, don’t know for sure but I don’t think I can picture myself at 92 years old. Haha, makes me laugh just thinking about it. I guess our own ending is something we think about the least but is the most present thing in our lives, the only guarantee we got when we arrived. The end, it does not scare me or frighten me, why should an evolutionary inevitability be something we fear? Why not use it, use it to force ourselves to live for and in today, the right now.

Yes, I am talking to you – do not wait or put off what you want from life, if you do – you will get to the end and wonder, why didn’t I do that, why did I do that. I do not want to have unanswerable questions when my time comes, whenever that is. I remember when my friend Brian was dying of cancer I told him that we all come with an expiration date, it happens to be tattooed on the inside of our asses and most likely we will never get a look to see it. Well, on one trip to California for treatment he actually asked the doctor to take a look and see if he could find his tattoo. To hear my friend Brian relate that story back to me and describe the look on the doctors face was priceless. I do miss Brian, his loss was hard but I was able to patch that hole in my heart and move on, just like I have with every loss I have suffered.

I am so lucky to have been hanging with Bride for the last 20+ years, she has brought more joy to my life than I could even describe. Her name is tattooed across my soul and that ink is not wearing off. She has brought meaning to my life and I hardly remember my life before she came into it. She got me red velvet cupcakes with cream frosting for my birthday, they were good! We don’t exchange gifts much anymore, we got everything we need and I am sometimes embarrassed by how fortunate we have been in our lives. If we do get gifts it is usually something small and silly or practical.

I am so enjoying the ride, this ride of life, and do not think I have ever been in a better place, personally. The world seems out of control to me right now, but ya know….. if you are a student of history there are many examples across time where folks must have had the same feelings we all have now, but here we are, a testament to humankinds ability to survive. So my (day before) burfday, I got to spend it with my best friend and I enjoyed the day, what more can I ask for. This is also my 214th blog, which really as Bride just pointed out to me is also my Burfday, 2-14, that makes me laugh for some reason, the perfect alignment of the stars right there I tell ya.

I love each of my friends and I do not feel I have told you enough but I do and I cherish your friendship