Four... Oh?

Today's my birthday. My fortieth birthday. 14,610 times around the sun. You know you're getting old when instead of thinking "Wow, he's old" upon hearing someone just turned 50, you start thinking "That's not all that old - or far away". One of the revelations a couple years back was that folks in their early 50s were no longer old enough to be my parents.

Birthdays make me pause and reflect on things in my life, how my life and my life's goals have changed and solidified as the years have passed. I would never have thought of myself as a writer, for example; yet I've got a semi-regular gig with the good folks at Guns, Holsters, and Gear (and this blog, of course). If you'd asked the ten year old me what I thought I'd be doing some thirty years hence, job descriptions like "doctor", "astronaut", "jet pilot", or "truck driver" would have be the responses. If you'd asked me at 20, perhaps I'd have answered "professor" or "scientist".

It's funny, the different curveballs life throws at you. Sometimes you swing and miss. Sometimes you connect and ground out. And sometimes you even hit the ball squarely and get on base - that's what it's all about. Age isn't a number, it's a marker; an arbitrary designator of the number of times one has managed to avoid death thus far. Of course, at this point, my markers that have yet to be written are starting to be outnumbered by those already set in stone.

In other words, anyone got a red convertible they're looking to sell?

That is all.