Today is my birthday.
I turned 42 today, and as much as I am expected (nigh obliged to,) make a Douglas Adams joke, I shall forbear to instead deal with a more serious issue.
I turned 42 today. Do you realize how close that is to fifty? Do you realize how far away that is from thirty? Do you realize I can't even remember twenty? I mean 42? Forty-fucking TWO? Are you kidding me?
That's just so awesome.
I haven't been this elated since I turned 41. And it's not because I'm stoked about my birthday because of any special celebration on this day; I've never been a big 'birthday blowout' kind of guy. I don't even take the day off from work or anything; my lovely coworkers got me cards and some very nice office supplies and an excellent home-made "candy bar ice cream pie," all of which I really and truly appreciate, but other than that, it was a regular day. I went to work, did my job, brought the kids to the library and came home to cook dinner for my family. Just another day.
But what this day represents to me is far more important to me than any party could ever be. I am a year older. I have aged enough that the numerical metric of my lifespan is moved forward by one standard increment. Ding, motherfucker, I just leveled up.
And I'm proud of this achievement.
But not everyone sees it this way. Most of my coworkers (overwhelmingly females older than myself,) make jokes about denying their age, or remarking with only partially mocking horror at the realizations of how old they are. Several of them engage in the time-honored tradition of remaining thirty-nine in perpetuity, a joke that was old when Wilde spun it.
But I have spent the day crowing about my new age, like a kid who just turned ten. I do that pretty much every year. I am just so psyched (in my own, low-key sort of way,) about racking up another year like I just painted another plane silhouette on the side of my fighter (I've surely made ace by now.) Why would someone voluntarily deny their age?
I guess it's a healthy person thing.
I mean, if you've lived your whole life taking the idea of seeing forty for granted, I guess I can see how it could be seen as distressing, or at least how one could joke about it. But for other folks, every year is like a damn medal pinned to your chest.
My mother was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease when I was a mere lad of nineteen. When she learned that she had PKD, my siblings and I were informed that any of us could have ticking time bombs inside us as well (spoiler alert: it was all three of us.) Now don't get me wrong, if you absolutely HAD to choose a disease to have, you could sure do worse than good ol' PKD.
But the fact is, the threat of death by kidney failure is still real, hanging over your head like the scalpel of Damocles. Because even if you do end up lucky enough to get a kidney transplant, (which my sister did on this very day a few years ago, yet another reason to celebrate,) the condition is still likely to statistically shorten your life.
So I can thrust out my jaw defiantly and say that I never took statistics, but no amount of giant balls (which I no longer have, remember,) or pithy one-liners can guarantee you continued health. Either death or dialysis (arguably better,) remain real possibilities.
So I'm not twenty-nine, I'm not thirty-nine, I'm not even thirty-nine and a half. I am, (to quote Oscar Wilde again,) fully forty-two.
I am proud of that number. I am proud of every grey hair crawling out of my beard, every centimeter backwards that my hairline inexorably creeps each year, and if I wasn't so fat that my skin is always stretched tight I'd be proud of every wrinkle.
Because I am alive. I've made it; the reaper has been denied for another year. PKD can kiss my ass.
Because I'm forty-fucking-two.
And that makes me one hoopy frood.
No comments:
Post a Comment