The Unthinkable

Well, it happened.  I promise you, I've spent a lot of time thinking about ways to prevent it from happening.  But I could only come up with one possible scenario, and that one was even more unthinkable than the event I've been wanting to prevent.  It's one thing to be taken surprise by something that quietly approaches and overtakes you without warning.  One can understand why an event like that is difficult to stop.  But that's not the case with what happened to me today.  I knew it was coming.  I've known for quite some time.  Years.  Decades.  And with all of this advance warning.  Still, I remained helpless.  It was around midnight last night that I finally surrendered to what must be.  I stopped reading.  I touched the lamp on my nightstand to dismiss its light.  I let out a sigh of resignation as I pulled the covers up around me.  And I allowed myself to drift into the final hours of sleep before the dawning of the unthinkable.

And now, nine hours later, I am 40.  Yesterday I was 39.

This birthday has been accompanied by flashbacks.  I've been listening to a lot of 80's music the past few weeks.  I've had memories from high school awaken that I hadn't before entertained.  I've had vivid flashbacks of scenes from the past eighteen years of marriage.  I actually woke up one morning recently and before opening my eyes and with bizarre clarity felt like I was in my bedroom in Jackson, Tennessee in 1997.  I think the song that came on with the clock radio sparked the flashback.

Every time Lynn has asked me, these past few weeks, what I wanted for my birthday, I've replied by asking her for a "Wayback Machine."

Well, she gave me my present yesterday.  It wasn't a "Wayback Machine."  Instead, it was a book that I have been wanting for quite some time called, Dead Heat, by Joel Rosenberg.  It's a book about the future.  She also gave me a movie I've been wanting.  The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, a classic about four children who step into another world and discover their true destiny and take their rightful place in in the heroic roles meant just for them.

I think her gifts are important ones for me.  I could spend a whole lot of time thinking about the past, reminiscing, fantasizing about going back, and regretting the bad choices.  What's done is done.  I can't do anything about it.  However, what will be, will be.  And it is in the realm of what will be in which I still have the ability to decide well, create beautifully, act with kindness, and discover who I am meant to be.

And the crafting of that future begins with today.  I sit here, on the back porch, eating cream-of-wheat with my wife, surrounded by the audio-visual symphony of creation, at the crossroads of yesterday and tomorrow.  Later today we'll begin the next forty by spending time with our friends over dinner and at the movies.

It's a good day.

Comments

[maryann]

good company...my sweetheart husband turned 44 today.
woohoo.

happy happy day...

[Myles]

Happy birthday Bill! It sounds like a very good day indeed! Savor every minute of it.

[Sheila]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BROTHER!!!! I LOVE YOU.

[Bill Huffhine]

Hey Maryann, Myles, Sheila!

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Hope you all have an awesome weekend!

[Samsara]

Lordy Lordy, look who's 40. :)
I am not 40 yet.
Yet.

You're right. There's only one way to avoid it and that IS indeed bleak. But why do we look at it that way? You know? Why [to make ourselves feel better] do we say, "...but then there's the alternative..." you know?

Society.

I blame society. Since when did it get okay to despise a celebration of a rotation around the sun? Goodness. Age really is just a number. Yes, things really do start happening with our body...but that's the case since the day we're born. I guess we could think of it as *going downhill* after what...? 15? 21? 32? 40? 45? 55?

But as for the reality, I have a mentor who is well over 40. She is beautiful, vivacious, wise, humble... So. I think, for me, to look toward someone I admire who's already beaten the path before me, is how I will deal with growing older. :)

It's a lot better than dreading it! And I think you handled it quite well! ;)

[Mike O]

Happy Birthday, dude!

Keep on posting!

[Laura]

Happy birthday, Bill! Wow, what a great track, too. Man oh man, my time has slipped even ten years more than yours, as I'm now 50. Yet most days, I feel about 25-30? What's up with that?

Anyway - I know my life is happier nowo than when I was younger so I guess that this time slippage has some benefits.

Take care -
~Laura
http://zentalfloss.blogspot.com/

[maryann]

hey there...come back!!