"Post No. 522"

They say it's MY Birthday!

Birthdays aren't much of a deal to me anymore.

Oh...when I was 9 or 10, or anytime in my pre-teens, yeah, having a birthday was pretty neat. A couple of times my mom would throw a party for me and have me invite all of my friends over, and we'd do the typical stuff a kid does on such an occasion. Play "Pin the Tail On The Donkey", eat cake, etc., but as I grew older when my folks would ask me "What do you want for your birthday?", I'd usually answer, "Just CASH!", as I was a teenager with teenage wants and needs, like putting gas in my car so I could aimlessly drive it all out doing absolutely nothing important than being a wasteful teenager.

As I grew even older and the same question was put to me I'd tell them to maybe send me a birthday card or wish me a Happy Birthday, as most of the time I was having to work that day anyway.

There were just a few birthdays after my 18th. that meant anything much to me, such as my 21st. (as that meant I could legally buy booze), my 30th. (as I felt like I could no longer trust myself), my 40th & 50th. (as I knew I was really getting OLD!) Really, my 50th. birthday didn't bother me half as much as my 40th. I mean, by then I already knew I was on the "road of no return".

I do believe that when I hit my 40th. the finality of actually being mortal sunk in, and that it seemed like a blink of an eye from the time I was that wild and crazy guy in his twenties, living in a partytown, working at a headshoppe, living with a gal ten years younger than me, and being a party-person, myself. All of that changed or ended during that brief 12 years. Just too much crap happened to me in my life between the ages of 28 and 40; seems like (now) that there really couldn't have been enough years for all of that to have transpired.

And so here I am today at 57, and I'm thinking, "Just five more years and I can sign up for Social Security!" And after seeing other people pass from this world over the years, I think as well, "What's gonna happen to all of this stuff I've accumulated!" And think forward to when I DO semi-retire (IF I can make it) and suppliment my income with on-line sales, breaking my heart a bit everytime one of the bits of my past goes thru the postal service to some unknown buyer to keep until THEY get too old to want to keep it anymore.

But ya can't take it with you. When they put you in that box there's just not any room for anything else.

Every day I try to appreciate what happens to me on THAT particular day, and enjoy it the best I can, 'cause...well...

You never know if you got a tomorrow.