Another birthday, another year of being an adult

 This year had lots of surprises:

•  My back hurts
• Some foods now bother me when I try and sleep at night
• I can't even look at alcohol sideways without a headache
• My hair continues to disappear and that hair that stays can't decide if it is white or grey
• My skin is aging and I notice it
• I have noticed times when my energy levels have caused me to make mistakes I don't notice until much later 

All superficial body things, but more noticeable every year.

And I feel like this year was a year of thinking about my body.  Suddenly all the coworkers don't look older than me, instead we all look 'similar ages' and we are all trying to manage getting older in our own ways.

I'm not always morose around my birthday, but this year has been a year of 'being an adult.' And I mean that in the best and worst possible ways.  

 Filling out all the paperwork necessary for being an adult. Dealing with family and friend issues that only happen when you're an adult.  Being disappointed and still choosing to love people and respond with love, knowing you could get hurt again.  Having the future revealed to you with little hints about what could be possible, versus things that will never happen again.

I am proud of myself for trying to make the most of this summer. I still am not a summer person. I could care less where the sun goes as long as it isn't nuclear winter. No sun, no problem.  But I spent a lot of time outside.  Most of it doing peasant work that needed doing around the house.

I spent a lot of my time this summer gardening, and it sort of was our hobby this summer, and quite fun. We tried a lot of things, and maybe 25% of them worked, but the 25% that did work, worked well. And it bodes well for next year.  The best thing I planted this year was lemon thyme which grew amazingly. The lavender we grew tried to die, and then eventually found its spirit sometime in August. The mixed potted plants we did thrived. The bush I bought grew a little, it might grow a lot next year if it survives the winter.

The one sunflower that lived to the end of the summer (the birds, rabbit and squirrels destroyed the rest at various life cycles) was just snipped by a squirrel this past Friday, robbing me of my ONE JOY I was waiting for this summer from my garden. >:(

I planted lots of native plants, and allowed certain kinds of native plants that are easy to remove if necessary, which blocked out a lot of the thistle that grew last year.   Sometimes the best thing to grow is the weed that looks the nicest and grows the slowest, and is good for the bees.

I find all my worries are adult worries. I care less than I used to about some things, and more about others. Overall, this year has been lonely in some ways.  But I'm ok with that because there have been times of great joy and blessings, too. 

More than anything I want good things for young people, for people growing up now. It is the one thing I think about all the time, and about how there are so many people my age, and older, who are shaping the world they will get to live in.  And it looks difficult, and that makes me sad. Since we should all be working to make a world where kids can smile.

I have been working on several creative projects, while putting my Youtube channel on the backburner. I'm very nervous about AI, and it is kind of a buzzkill for me creating that kind of video or thought essay on book right now. I'll have to revisit what I do with it in the future.

More than anything, I am just a person trying to evolve and change with what I know it means now, a little more, to be an adult and carry on in life. 

 

I know now the meaning of life

 Today is my birthday, and it feels good.

 I went to work, had a little mini party, had a 32 oz bubble tea (do not recommend) had lots of laughs with colleagues, got a very nice present from parents and Alex, and went to my dance class.  Lots of plans to see people this week, lots of nice messages and thoughtfulness. 

 Life has changed.  People have changed.  I really feel like this year is a new chapter, especially the past few months.  People are reconsidering what's important, children are growing up.  I had a mental break when one of my youngest nephews let me know he passed his full drivers test and is now driving by himself.

But it's not bad...it's just life.  Life changes even when we don't want it to.  Reality doesn't conform to our dreams. It's the other way around.  Dreams come to reality and become something different than what we expect.

Let me tell you a story. In university, I was secretary for a student council.  I took pretty good notes, but used a lot of shorthand for words.  I went back a couple years ago, and talked to the chaplain who helped run the council. He said, "You know, your legacy is that we all use one or two of the shorthand words you used to use in all of our minutes for our meetings!"

Famous and obscure, that's me.

The things we imagine for ourselves...they rarely come true in a way we expect.  Life is very much a monkey's paw.  Make a wish, get a surprise in how reality unfolds.

This decade, it's a new chapter.  I don't know what it will be.  When I started my career, I saw people as rising stars above me.  Those people are now close to retiring.  Life is a wheel, and we are on it long enough to see the lights as it goes around.  Or at least I have been.  I'm still on the ride, going for another round.

It's been a good yr. Looking fwd to the next 1.   

 

 

 

 

A birthday post

It's that time of the year again...my birthday.  It's a milestone birthday which is good.  But it's definitely been a year of ups and downs.

I tend to get moody around big birthdays, and go from being really happy to really melancholy.  I am an extremely lucky person with decent health and a good partner and a job and stable place to live.

But around birthdays (much like this one) I sometimes dwell on what I have versus what I wish I could have. Certainty in the future, removal of stress from rising costs, adult decisions, and changing relationships with friends and family.

Life is not easier as you get older.  "I think that I could have done more this year," that's what I always think almost every year.  I think about what I would do if there was two or three of me.  There is never enough time, and that's the thing that's always so tricky...time is tricky.

A reading on my birthday.

First Reading: Colossians 1: 21-23

21 And you, whereas you were some time alienated and enemies in mind in evil works:

22 Yet now he hath reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unspotted, and blameless before him:

23 If so ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and immovable from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which is preached in all the creation that is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister.

As I reflect, this Bible reading is very apropos for my birthday: because there have been moments of great darkness, thinking about the future, and being alienated is certainly a feeling I feel, the older I get.  I have come to realize I am an adult, I am no longer just a young person who can get away with doing as he wants, nor is that the kind of person I envision for myself.  

But one thing I have learned through this year, in the face of great nihilism: faith is central to everything that I do, and that is my mantra going forward into my adult years.  The mistakes I make are my own, but the good that I do in the world is a fundamentally through something greater than me.  What is good, what is real in this small blue world is about something other than me.

So, even in a year with great mistakes and many moments that were both sad and hopeful, I'm looking to the future.  I still feel there are great moments in time waiting for me.  There is much more good to discover in the world.

The year of 37

 This year was especially good to me.  Things I'm blessed with:

• I saw my family, and spent quality time with them
• No one (or nearly no one) got COVID seriously or otherwise. I'm thankful for this everyday
• I had a job through the pandemic, when many didn't.  
• I had people to talk with, had activities to do every week, even when shut in during lockdowns
  

This year was a blessing for me, not because of all the things I had, but because of the essentials that were put in place by me, my friends and family, and God.  It's those essentials that keep you going when you wonder how you'll face another day in a small four walls, and with no real change or variety to lighten the days.  And we all know, there were some long days.  

And I still managed to accomplish some of my goals this year:

• Goals completed: 10/37
• Number of goals affected by pandemic (Aka. impossible to complete): 15

  There are some that are half-completed, and some goals/plans changed so much in the year I was 37 that it was hard to know what was worth completing, and what was better to just leave to the side. I'm sure most people felt this way: What to do? What to bother completing?  Does getting out of bed count as high functioning?  Yes, probably.

But I did accomplish a few things off my list, some of which I'm proud of:

 

• I spent time with Vita, my grandmother. I love her dearly, and it was hard to schedule and see her safely
• I worked on my financial investments this year.  They aren't anything exceptional, but it is good I am at least attempting to plan for the future
  
• I read over 10 books (I'm somewhere on book 26-7), and often non-fiction books and books on hard subjects that challenged me.  White fragility was probably the most thought provoking that I read.
  
• I planned to run a 10K, but since it got cancelled, I can at least say I run about 5-10K every week at a leisurely pace (yet another activity cancelled by the pandemic last year).
• I managed to do fun things with friends, even though most events and plans were cancelled

 37 was not exactly what I thought it would be. But overall, I'm happy with how the year went. A lot of good things happened, some not-so-good things, and some things that were surprises.

 

More than anything, I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that, yes, I am an adult, and I'm going to have to make adult decisions, some of which will be hard, and experience adult things, some of which will be difficult.  But life is a wide road, and though some experience have been shut off for all of us in the last two years, I still have a hope for a better future for younger generations.