Of failed blog posts and old feckers.

Here I am on the advent of the thirty-sixth year of my existence on this planet and I feel like taking stock. Well not really, but it does seem like the thing to do when birthdays come around...

... Alright, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. This is the third or fourth time I've attempted this post. Nothing seems to be working. Nothing! I tried to come up with a list of random stats to illustrate my life, and that just ended in a dead end. I tired to write about how the before mentioned post containing a list of stats ended up in a dead end, and that ended up in a dead end. I tried another angle where... look, you know what? Forget it. I could compose a post composed entirely of failed post ideas, but that would be silly.

Today I turn thirty-six; no big deal. Sure, according to some polls and/or surveys, I'm in a whole new bracket. Brilliant. I really don't feel any different than the day before, but then I wasn't expecting to. I figured out a while ago that my life is not a series of switches that get flipped as soon as I hit certain chronological points. While there have been pivotal moments throughout my life, it is not so much these moments, but rather the what follows these moments that have shaped who I am. My life is an accumulation, a constant addition of experiences that equal more than the sum of these parts. Every day I'm different than the day before. Whether or not I appreciate this constant change, I acknowledge that the change nevertheless occurs.

So where does this leave a newly minted thirty-six-year-old? Wherever I want to be. I could take this day, roll it's stiff joints out of bed and groan, "Jaysus, I'm an old fecker." I could drop it from a height and remark that, "I don't seem to have quite the bounce I used to." I could throw it in a pan on the stove and lament that, "I'm still crap in the kitchen." Conversely, I could take this day and stretch it out on a mat and marvel that, "I'm still quite flexible." I could lace up it's shoes and boast that, "My cardio kicks ass!" I could hold it up to the mirror and admit, "Actually, I kind of like the lines around my eyes." 

In the end, though, I will take this day and file it in my albums, along with the photos of me growing up; next to the photos of my family and friends over the years. I will take this day and hang it up on the wall next to the photos of my wife and children. Then I will step back and remind myself that regardless of my achievements or failures, these thirty-six years have never been about just me. Nothing we do as humans exists in a vacuum. No life is lived completely separate. The years in the past and the ones that are to come, are mine for the sharing. After thirty-six years, I'm still trying to figure that out...