Another birthday comes and goes

We've never been big birthday celebrators and that's really ok with me.

My wife's bosses family goes completely nuts. Banners, parties the whole nine. We just kinda let them slide by.

When the kids were small we used to do family parties, replete with cake and ice cream etc. And when they were a bit bigger we even did the ChuckECheese parties and bowling parties.

But Patti and I never fussed much for each other. The most we do is 'Well, it's your birthday, what do you want to do with the day?'.

My birthday (my 48th) was Super Bowl sunday. We went out for breakfast (which was the only thing I really wanted to do) and pretty much stayed in for the rest of the day. I puttered around the house, worked on a couple of pedals (for guitar effects - hobby/biz) and basically just effed off.

And I'm totally ok with that. I really don't like all the attention. The older I get the more I want to stay under the radar. If I had my way I'd never leave the house. In a perfect world, Patti and I would just be home with each other. The kids can come visit (and the grandkids!), but really that's all we want to do. And we're both that way. We go to work, and then race home just to BE with each other.

We spent quite a bit of sunday in the same house, but doing other stuff. Patti is a voracious reader, and she pounded through one book and started another. Just the being together is the thing.

The only thing that occurred to me this year is that 48 sounds a lot closer to 50! And I guess that doesn't really bother me, although it does feel a bit like approaching a milestone. Patti turns 50 this year, she's completely unfazed by it. I really think that our level of contentment with our lives and each other makes the whole getting older thing irrelevant.

If we were both working to achieve some higher goal or some level of happiness, I think maybe the time would feel like 'another year gone and no progress'. I don't want to dump my wife for a newer younger model, I don't want a sports car - I just want to BE - just like we are.

And I don't feel 48 (whatever that means), but I think 48 IS kinda old. And I don't feel all that old! (Maybe everyone feels that way) I'm still young inside my head, ya know? So, maybe sometime soon, I'll travel to WV and drive aimlessly around on Tuesdays for Tammie. I can even be surly and wear a little hat on the back of my head while I peer over the steering wheel!

So that's the big question of getting older - when do you qualify as a participant in elderly hell day?
m.