Very recently I celebrated my 40th year on this planet. Wow, what a ride it has been. You know Garth Brooks once sang a song called “The Ride” that spoke of not wanting to miss the ride of life and being glad for the things that we get to do, even the unplanned things. I guess if I was going to sum up the last 40 years of my life I would say most of it was unplanned, well at least by me.
I am sort of a take life as it comes kind of guy. I guess that is a good thing in a way. For the most part what that means to me is a life with out much worry. Don’t get me wrong I have done my share of worrying, but I try my best not to let it over take me. I tend not to take things very seriously for the most part because life has taught me that I am not really in as much control of the world around me as I would like think I am. So since I am not in control I don’t feel the need to worry as much. I figure it is best to take life as it comes, one day at a time, and do the best I can with what I am given.
My mom always says that I tend to “land on my feet” and that maybe that is a good thing since God blessed me with size 13″ feet. I think the reason she says that is because she has seen me roll with the punches so often. I don’t see me landing on my feet as much as changing direction to keep from falling down. Sure I make mistakes. I have made lots of mistakes, the trick is to learn from them and move on. That brings me back to the reason for this post.
Old age, what a strange concept. If you think of the time that has passed since God put this rock we live on in motion, the days of our lives are nothing more than a vapor. The longer I live the more I see my life a brief moment in eternity. Even if I were to live to be 100 (a concept that right now I can not grasp) my life will be very short in the grand scheme of things. Yet, the world as a whole does not place much value on getting older, or the elderly.
The longer I live the more I realize that the world has a fascination with youth. I even caught myself looking at Grecian Formula at Wal-Mart yesterday. I have my share of gray hairs and I thought wouldn’t it be nice to at least look a little younger for a change. I guess turning 40 comes with some eagerness to hang on to youth. It did not take me long to decide that this way of thinking was foolishness and I put the Grecian Formula back on the shelf. God has blessed me with more than 14,400 days and to wish any of them away would be to say “I don’t want this blessing, thank you very much.” Besides from my teen years forward I had to learn several very hard lessons, and I can tell you right now that I would not want to have to repeat a one of them.
Like a lot of folks my age I tend to look back at my youth through rose colored glasses. We even have a very romantic sounding way to refer back to those days as the “Glory Days” (Thank you very much Mr. Bruce Springsteen), but were those days really that glorious. Back then (High School) I had no idea about who I was and what God wanted out of me. My 9th grade year I felt like a walking zit. My tenth grade year I fell in love with my best friends girl, stole her from him, dumped her, and then was depressed to be so alone. The sumer after my eleventh grade year that same best friend died. Also that summer I got sick with Ulcerative Colitis and missed football camp for the second year in a row. My senior year was meet with me having to take 11th grade and 12th grade English all at the same time just so I could graduate with my class. A bright spot that year was the fact that I feel deeper in love with my future bride. After high school I struggled to “find myself”. I rarely held a job for more than a few months. I finally decided to go to college after two years of working in miserable service related jobs. If I am honest with myself these were anything but Glory Days for me.
Really, the best time of my life did not start for me until just a few years ago. After lots of “career” challenges and changes I feel I have finally found my thing. I am teaching classes and working with computer systems. Both of which I could have never done if it had not been for the experiences I have gained in the last 20% of my days. These last 2000+ days have really helped me become who I am. I have a sense that no matter how many days I live past today, I will be blessed because I have lived so long and learned so much.
I guess I don’t look at 40 quite the way I did when I was half as young. I believe that it very well could be that 40 is where life begins, or maybe at least where life begins to make sense. So I say to “Old Age” bring it on, give me your best shot. Like I have heard from many others, what don’t kill you, only makes you stronger.
