Yesterday was my birthday. Another thing that I think makes me different than most people is that it seems like just another day. This is another huge difference between my feelings and my wife’s. For instance, through the years my celebrations are getting smaller and more subdued. Whereas my wife’s are getting bigger, grander and take a week’s worth of work to prep and several days to clean-up. I think that it is difficult for her to accept that I really don’t want much fuss to be made.

Last year, my birthday was on Sunday. It also happens to be the week of the month that we are committed to leading Children’s church. The pastor seemed genuinely surprised that I would do such a thing on my birthday. In fact, he has mentioned it several times over the year. I saw it as my commitment, regardless of what day it was and how crappy and selfish it would be to bow out at the last minute and cause extra work just because it was my birthday.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely don’t want to work on my birthday. But that’s not different than the next day or any day for that matter. I suppose when you are born during the school year, it seems normal that it is a day of schedule and commitment from as far as I can remember. Transition that to work, it is the same as school and we just had a bunch of holidays.

Sunday, we had a nice dinner with my brother’s family and my parents. We drove about an hour to meet in the middle for everyone. Since we skipped our traditional Christmas Eve gathering this last year because of our caretaking responsibilities, it was nice to get together for a short period of time. I suppose that is my idea of an ideal party; people that want to get together, have a nice time and share some laughter.

I was thinking Sunday night as I was trying to fall asleep that I am 47. That is only three years to fifty and I will be on the back side of middle age, if I am not already. The strange part of it seems like this decade has been more enjoyable than the twenties or the thirties. Those two seem like a blur and were here and gone, but not the forties. This decade seems like it really has been six years since I was 40.

If I were to speculate, I would guess that there is a reason. In the early part of the twenties, I was focused on getting my degree. Then it was getting married, searching to find the ideal living situation and positioning in the career space. In my thirties, I had family born and solidifying career and sort of setting roots. Now, in my forties those roots have taken hold and the fruit is starting to come on.

With a fair degree of comfort and stability, I can fill up my gas tank if I want to, I don’t have anxiety over picking one holiday celebration or the other and I can find my way down the hallway in the dark. I think those are the things that make this decade more enjoyable than the previous ones.

End Your Programming Routine: I have had birthdays where it snowed (although that has been a while), I have had birthdays with flooding, I have had birthdays where I have been lucky to be on ‘Christmas break’ still but usually, it is a work day. I did have a good day. I enjoyed my time with the family and we had dinner and played a game. It’s not that it didn’t have some conflict and struggle, we did. But everyone made an effort to be more polite and accommodating. That was a great gift.