Monday, June 11, 2007

The Cruelty of Angst

So yesterday was my birthday. Reha flew my Mom in for a surpise birthday party and I was floored when I walked in and saw her there. But as you know, this place is ALL ABOUT ME, not my mother, so let’s get to the point:

I turned 40.

FORTY!

The big FOUR-OH!

Holy pizza sitting out all night in the box on the counter, I’ve gotten old all of a sudden.

Obviously, it didn’t just sneak up on me. I knew it was coming and all that. But saying out loud, “I’m forty” feels seventeen kinds of strange is all. It’s like if you woke up one day and found that you had a hojillion dollars and now you can pay for lunches, instead of hiding in the bathroom when the check comes, but you still have the instinct to run for the potty when you see the server trotting up with the final bill. “Oh! I can stay and handle this now.” But it’s not money, it’s years and the past stretching out behind you. Saying “I’m in my forties” is going to take some getting used to, that’s all I’m saying.

Am I going through a mid-life crisis? No, not really. I don’t want to buy a Maserati or trade in my wife for a younger model, but I am feeling a bit “meh” about it all.

I just look back at my life and all the stuff I’ve ever done and think, “That’s it? That’s everything I’ve accomplished? What a pathetic waste of space and oxygen I turned out to be. I haven’t climbed any mountains or cured any cancers and I’m not rich or famous and geez, back when I was 22, I kind of thought I might have had a chance for at least one of those things.” Kind of like how every man secretly believes that if he just practiced really hard, he could make it to the big leagues and become a closer of the Red Sox (or $_TEAM, whatever). Or at least a middle reliever. Or am I the only one who thinks that way? ‘Cause, dude, back in the day I had quite an arm; and, though I tend to think most sports are kind of silly, I never had the motivation to practice that much and I didn’t really have that good a curve ball; but barring those things, I TOTALLY could have played, man.

Reha would like to interject that NO ONE has cured cancer yet, so it’s not like I’m in poor company over here.

But Jon, you big blubbering mass of malaise, you say exasperatedly, “you have a great wife who puts up loves you and four wonderful and thus far mostly mentally sane children who think you are funny and smart, you have decent health and a good job, why don’t you put a cork in it?”

Yeah, but…

It’s just…

Jeez, I’m forty and I look back and feel like I’ve WASTED so much time on so many things that don’t matter. And I’m not just talking about finishing Kingdom Hearts II, either. (That was both fun AND worthwhile. I saved the universe, dude). I’m talking about wasting my life on things that *really* don’t matter, like that one time I got caught up in a marathon run of The Nanny on Lifetime.

Anyway, my life is now probably halfway done. Damned if I’m going to let Fran Drescher rule it any longer.

Reha, sage that she is, opined that since I’m not really much of a life planner, I shouldn’t be that surprised that I’m not some über-person who cured lymphoma a couple years ago and was now getting busy on that pesky Arab-Israeli conflict. (Speaking fo that, who do you have to kill to get a Nobel Peace Prize, anyway?) I’m pretty mellow in the same way a stoner teenager is mellow, as we all know. So I should just be at least content that I’ve turned out half as well as I have and just shut it.

But…

I’m not going to make some huge life change from here on out and become a monk or stop stalking Jennifer Aniston, but I am going to make some of those things… what do you call them? Starts with a “g"… Ah! Goals! Those.

Gonna make me some goals.

Isn’t that how they say it?

No, that’s not right…

I’m going to SET some goals. And see if I can’t make some changes in my life so I don’t have a minor mental meltdown in ten years. That sound you heard was my wife keeling over after fainting.

Wait… in ten years… I’ll be 50! Fifty! Oh holy, Book ‘em, Dan-O, Hawaii Five-O!

Oh. Kill. Me. Now.

1. Life isn’t about accomplishments. Life is about living. And as long as we enjoy and can feel contentment in each breath, in each moment, then we are truly alive, and age does not matter.

   We are plastered to the windshield of the bus that is time.

   Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

   Posted by CB  on  06/11/07  at  12:24 AM

2. “Stop whining.” - Ahnold, in Kindergarten Cop

   Also my anti-spam word is myself15, which - oh the irony! - is kind of like the emotional age I’ve been stuck at for over thirty years.

   Hmm.

   Posted by Radioactive Jam  on  06/11/07  at  06:49 AM

3. I hear ya.

   Four-o is coming up in a year and a half for me and I keep having this urge to quit my job, sell my stuff and take the epic cross-country road trip…

   Posted by michael  on  06/11/07  at  11:17 AM

4. If anyone needs us, Michael and I are back-packing across Europe.

   Come on! It’d be totally fun to abandon all responsibilities and become euro-trash for a summer!

   Posted by jon  on  06/11/07  at  01:25 PM

5. Happy Birthday!

   Posted by Ellen  on  06/12/07  at  10:00 AM

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