I just had a birthday. I'm 38.
It's funny, there was a moment in time (not too long ago) when I thought life was essentially over once you turned thirty, not to mention the ripe, old age of THIRTY-EIGHT. I always held onto silly ideas that I needed to accomplish certain goals by certain ages, and if I didn't achieve those goals, that meant I was a failure. Many of those ideas were born out of comparison, like if Steven Spielberg made his first flick at 26 or Steven King published his first book at 26, then I should do the same. When twenty-six came and went, I'd temporarily feel like I'd failed some kind of abstract challenge, but move on and look out for another icon who found success at a later age. Even now, I'm half-thinking about Madeline L'Engle's declaration that she'd quit writing if she didn't publish by forty, and how she got Wrinkle in Time published at 42, and how I've still got time to "MAKE IT." We're always doing that to ourselves, aren't we? Holding up other people's stories to make ourselves better, than finding another story once that benchmark passes by? I know I do. And the reality is that people accomplish big things at all ages. Some in their twenties, others even earlier and many much later. And it's all okay. I sometimes think of my adult life not even starting until I turned 32. That milestone came along with the knowledge of my wife being pregnant with our first son. Life really cranked up for me. The reality of life's finite quality never became clearer until that moment, and now I've really cranked up the work to achieve those goals. That's not to say that I wasn't "living" prior to 32--I had so many wonderful adventures, travel and work in my twenties--, but I am saying that those abstract goals crashed head-on with the reality that life WILL END. While I only have a certain amount of time to achieve certain things (because I will die at some point), I still must enjoy the moments I'm in. Look to the future, but don't forget about the present. And I often missed out because I dwelled on comparing my life and career with others. Does that make sense? In all my research of authors, directors, or any other visionary, literally the only common aspect I've discovered in almost anyone's story of "making it" is that they never gave up. So, I won't. This is a long way of saying that 38 will be the best year of my life, at least until my next birthday.
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AuthorI am a writer. I write. Archives
January 2021
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