Mile Marker Forty

On the morning of May 25th, I will celebrate my fortieth birthday. My inner cynic reminds me that the journey is half over. His booming voice echoes a refrain of all that there is left that I wish to accomplish and see and do and of the fleeting nature of time. The nagging sense of that inner alarm clock has kept me awake in the middle of more than a few nights in the months leading up to this moment.

Shouting amongst the chorus there is also a song of regret. A litany of moments I'd like to go back and change and of paths never taken, rivers of risks never  swum. While trying to drown out the cacophony of time's noisy march, I have looked back upon fences never mended and mistakes that haunt me still, even if only slightly.

These are the sorts of voices I am normally prone to hear; sounds of warning and emotional reminders acting in the guise of tough learned lessons for self-improvement. And yet, these are not the voices I have heard the clearest these last weeks of my thirties. Oddly, it has been a calm, and welcome voice of contentment and optimism that rings in my ears loudest when I consider the importance of this personal milestone.

My four decades of life have been filled with uncanny luck, humbling acts of generosity and the consistent kindness of many, many people. I have a wonderful wife and two beautiful children. Somehow, my kids are in the midst of growing into young adults and this July I will have been very happily married for fifteen years.  My family has been an amazing source of support and encouragement and I have a coterie of friends who I feel have given me so much more than I could have possibly given them. These relationships have left me continually humbled and appreciative for every single one of them.

I have had my fair share of creative successes. There have been a number of bands with whom I have grown as a musician and written and recorded a respectable amount of songs and albums that I still feel a great deal of pride in. There have been benefit shows for political causes and charitable endeavors.  I was also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to help build a theater company from the ground up and take part in a number of very well done productions. This list may seem like a self-congratulatory resume of personal accomplishments, but in my eyes I see the people who helped me make these things a reality. From my theater contacts to my bandmates and beyond, I have had the undeniable good fortune to meet people with talent and commitment to a vision of creativity in which I could flourish. None of these are solitary accomplishments, even though it's easy to forget that.

I own a home, I co-own and run my own business, but mostly, those seem like mere possessions and I have known myself long enough now to know that I am listing these items last because the importance of them pales in comparison to the people in my life who have truly mattered. So, instead of lamenting my age, I'd rather use this occasion to recognize my own good fortune and do something that I rarely do on my own: Feel thankful. If you're reading this right now, chances are you have played at least some small part in this. Thank you. Thank you very much.