Random Musings On Half A Century

No, I'm not talking about my latest bike ride. I'm talking about my life and the milestone birthday coming up. Fifty years. Half a century. The big five-oh. "Well, how did I get here?" to channel The Talking Heads' "Once In A Lifetime." It wouldn't be much of a half-century if I couldn't spell out a few random musings and resolutions, now would it? So, accepting the risk that I'm only scratching the surface, here they are in no particular order. First, the random musings:

Any regrets? Yes, I have a few, and I'll undoubtedly build up a few more before I'm done. It can't be helped as long as I'm human and fallible. Life is sometimes about the regrets you choose to live with.

Sometimes the smallest life events slip past unnoticed, only to resurface years later after working their insidious, termite-like effect. A better analogy may be that tiny grain of sand irritating an oyster; it ends up as a pearl gracing a beautiful woman's neck. There are many grains of sand in my life. And some beautiful women too, thank God.

Why is it that as the "big" questions in your life get answered, they're replaced with other, more fundamental uncertainties? Your personal owner's manual should mention that somewhere.

I'm starting to be OK with myself. I've toasted success and faced failure. Neither had as much to do with me as I thought at the time. Anyway, blaming and/or boasting are highly overrated as personal growth strategies. I used to tell my boss that I wasn't as smart as he thought when things were going well, and not nearly as dumb as he thought when things were in the toilet. Little did he know...

I'm proud that those with authority over my life still have to earn it. I've never given a flying fig about titles, degrees, roles, functions and/or positions; they're irrelevant to me. It has never been about what you are; it's how you act and what you contribute that counts. As an attitude, it has certainly kept me from kissing a lot of miserable, worthless, undeserving asses along the way.

Life has thrown its challenges at me. I've known love and loss, exhilaration and grief, satisfaction and disappointment. That fertile loam has nourished me and shaped me into the person I am today. It has burnished some of my rough edges and illuminated a few blind spots. Yet the basic person would still be recognizable to those who knew me way back when. I guess that's a good thing.

I now understand my father a whole lot better. I understand that he was a very private, introverted man who felt powerful emotions that he could never express. I understand that, in his own way, he cared for us all very deeply. I came to this understanding late in my life and his...and then he was gone.

OK, now what? A few resolutions:

For whatever time I have left, I'm gonna live as fully and passionately as possible. I'll revel in watching my kids enter adulthood as beautiful, confident young women. I'll triathlon until someone physically carries me from the battlefield. I'll play drums until those bitchy rest home nurses pry the drumsticks from my gnarled hands. I'll dance 'til the band collapses from exhaustion. I'll read great books, listen to compelling music, ponder the unknowable, watch the stars and wonder about the universe, drink the world's great wines and marvel at sunsets over Italy's Amalfi Coast. Then I'll wake up the next morning and do it all over again.

I'll embrace worthwhile causes and support deserving organizations. I'll do my best to ease life's burdens for those around me. I'll claim fewer of the planet's finite resources for my own. I'll make more of a difference and spend less time complaining that history isn't unfolding according to MY plan.

I'll find rewarding work to do, work that connects me with talented, smart, energetic people, work that nourishes my soul. Hopefully it pays the bills but, if not, I need fewer bills not different work. I guess that mostly rules out the corporate world, but the corporate world and I parted company a long time ago. It just took me 10 years to recognize it.

Hmmm. Wow. 50 is not so bad. In fact I'm starting to feel sorry for 20 year-olds. All they have is youth, and (to paraphrase Mark Twain) they're too damn young to appreciate it.

Thanks for reading. Here's to another great half-century. C'mon along.