Obligatory Essay on turning 39

So I’m 39… If you’re doing the math that means I was born in 1970.  If you’re astrologically interested, I was born at 12:47 AM in the south-eastern part of Nebraska.  If you live outside the US and are not exactly sure where this is, picture a map of the USA and put your finger right in the centre of it.  You’re probably within 100 miles (220 km) or so.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m writing in British-style (centre rather than center).  I am writing from New Zealand after all so I figure I might as well be appropriate to where I am rather than from where I was born.  While it is very obvious to those that check up on me regularly, I’ve been in New Zealand for over a year now so being here is nothing new.  But for whatever reason I feel the urge to capture these thoughts on 39 years in a more holistic way.  It starts just after midnight in early summer in Nebraska and has wound its way to early winter in New Zealand in just under 4 decades.  A physical distance of some 10,000 miles, I suppose it may be as far as one can travel from Nebraska and still be on land and on the planet.  I assure you this was entirely un-intentional.

What I have determined in 39 years is that you just never know what’s going to happen next.  Sometimes good, sometimes bad; you just don’t know.  For me so far the good has outweighed the bad.  I still am excited by what may yet happen each day.  There are still yet many unpleasant challenges.  There will be more, but I am still eager for the fight.

When I was a young boy I thought about being an adult.  About the time I could do the math, I projected to the year 2000.  That seemed a magical year at the time.  I would be 30 and I would see a new century.  I imagined myself in a suit and tie on the streets of some city like New York.  As a kid I just never imagined that at 30 I might be in the same place I was at 10.  I lived in Nebraska until I was 27 when I moved to Kansas City.  I stayed in KC until I was 37 when I moved to New Zealand.

I shall declare the day I moved out of my parent’s house at 19 as the day I became an “adult”.  But I don’t think I knew a thing about maturity until perhaps as late as my divorce at 31.  Between 19 and 31 I learned about love, women, children, and finances—almost in that order!

After 31 I began to discover something of feeling old.  Only enough to give me an idea about what being old someday may be like.  But it was also about this time I really felt like I knew who I was and how to actively live out who I was.  I think for me, at least, losing something precious (my kiddos) taught me something of what was valuable.  I learned how to live things you couldn’t change and didn’t like.  But I also learned not to stand for things I didn’t like and I *could* change.  Life is too short and often too complicated to waste time living with things you don’t have to.

So 39… not quite 40… now what?  I look ahead to 2030 and 2040 and even 2050.  Maybe even farther, who knows?  Strangely I have less of an idea of what life will be like at 60 than I ever pictured for 30.  I could talk to you about plans and retirement and kids out of college, but I can’t really picture what life is like.  The idea of me at 60 (or 80) still “online” and joining my buddies in the latest network game sounds hilarious and it’s probably true.  I only hope I can keep up with the hardware.  I hope I can still see trees from my windows and walk through mist covered hills.  I hope the ocean is not too far away for a visit.  I hope all my kiddos are doing very well as doctors, artists, and scientists.  I hope Amy is near by and walking with me.  While I’m at all this hoping, I hope all of you are with me too happy in your lives and enjoying this journey of discovery.  I have only recently discovered that there is no quota of good that can be exhausted.  If you are blessed with miracles, this does not mean that other miracles were diverted.  If you were spared, it does not me others were sacrificed.  We can all receive an endless supply of miracles.

That’s about all I think I can ramble on today.  I’m doing fine.  I hope you are too.