ambientlight

OMFG!

They were right... I did go blind!



Sooo...
Tomorrow's my birthday. It's one of those milestone one's... I turn 55.
Someone at work asked me if I was starting to feel old. I said "naw... I'm just getting my 2nd wind." I look in the mirror, and I really don't see much in the way of wrinkles... a few, but not as many as you might think at my age. Hair's thinning a bit... starting a new regimen of Rogaine and Fo Ti.

Birthdays are always somewhat contemplative for me.... a process of contemplation that begins the day after xmas (year ending), takes on an earnest tone at New Year's, and finally culminates on my birthday. There many things to contemplate this time around, not only the twists and turns my life has taken over the decades, but also all that I have seen in the world through my journey. And of course, there is the matter of this being a "milestone day."

In that regard... I have to confront that I'm not where I expected to be at this time. But as I look back, there has never been a time where I was where I expected to be. And the thought occurs, that this is probably true for almost everyone. Life is a journey that is shared with everyone else on this planet. And because of this, there are always unexpected occurences that shape or even change our direction... and our perspectives.

There are so many experiences to reflect on, too many to document here. Let's just say that on 1.20.1967, I became homeless after coming between mother and my step-father's abuse, with a baseball bat. By February I had taken residence in Haight Ashbury Park in San Francisco. And the rest of this life's journey, has unfolded from that point of reference... a foundational point of reference I have carried with me trough all my endeavors and all my travels. And a point of reference that has become now, seemingly somewhat archaic.

The new millennium has indeed changed everything... new technologies, new ways of communication, new music, new rules, new challenges. And through the first decade, I seem to have been returned to "square one." A good thing I'm thinking now, because from this a new life emerges. I have shed the companions of my past, because they remain stuck in the past. That which does not adapt to change, is doomed to be discarded by evolution. Those who do not take hold of their lives and create their own destinies, are doomed to be the victims of change. And while we as organisms are fated to grow older... "growing old" is a state of mind and a matter of choice.

I must, by necessity, grow older. But I will NEVER grow old. And the fact that I still attract the attentions of 20-something girls... well, I guess I'm doing ok. I'm still as healthy as I was in my 20's, suffer from no infirmities, and have no aches and pains except for the metal fragments incurred through a perhaps sometimes too adventurous life. And they do make for some interesting stories, as do the scars... (and chicks dig scars, right?).