So, as of tomorrow, I am forty years old. I... really don't want to be forty. I mean, yes, obviously, it beats the alternative of not living to forty. And, no, it's really not old. It's not really anything; it's just an arbitrary number that only looks significant because we happen to be born with ten fingers. And yet, almost inevitably, it does have me thinking about things like what's going to happen to me in old age, and how kids today really are living in a world completely different from the one I knew, and, Comic Book Guy-style, whether I've wasted my life.
And just to make it all really hit home, while I was composing this post in my head, I noticed I had an answering machine message from my doctor. She does, in fact, want to me to start taking (a very small amount of) thyroid hormone. Which is probably no big deal, and maybe not even particularly unexpected, but, boy, if it doesn't feel like passing a signpost saying, "It's All Downhill From Here."
Obviously, I need to take myself on a birthday book-buying spree to cheer myself up.
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Happy Birthday. You are not allowed to be 40. I am not old enough. Sorry about the thyroid thing. Hope that is taken care of. We both send our love. Glad you liked the card. She picked it out of course.
ReplyDeleteWe're none of us old enough to be the age we are!
ReplyDeleteAnd the doctor seems to think the thyroid thing should be no problem to take care of with a very low-dosage pill, although it does mean I'll have to have my blood checked again in about six weeks to make sure.
I remember turning... that age. It hasn't hurt yet! :)
ReplyDeleteI hereby declare a corollary to my "calories don't count on your birthday" rule: Books purchased/received (or otherwise acquired) on/for your birthday do not count against your book-buying quota for the month. (Does that cover all the loopholes?)
Think of it this way: we're closer to the age when we may declare that we're old enough to eat dessert first and old enough to acquire as many books as we want when we want. :)
Oh, wait. One more loophole to close: If birthday books increase the to-read pile above its preordained limit, the limit is automatically raised to the level of, or above, the new quantity of books, at no penalty.
Hasn't hurt except for your brain's complete inability to acknowledge it. ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd I have been having exactly the same thoughts about birthday book-buying. Although I don't think I'm going to mess with the upper limit again. Tat way lies madness.
I've been willing to eat dessert first for years, though. :)
Belatedly, but happy birthday!
ReplyDeleteNot belated at all! Thanks. :)
ReplyDeleteNo, You cant be 40. Iam going backwards. I am now 64 again. Captain, neither one of you can be forty. I remember when certain people went to a Prom and it was only 5 or 6 years ago, right?
ReplyDeleteYeah, can't be much more than that!
ReplyDeleteI've decided I want to go back to being 27. That seems like a good age. I think I'll just settle back in on 27 and stay there.
Pop, it wasn't even that long ago. We're still in college, right?
ReplyDeleteBetty, I'm not unable to acknowledge it; I just refuse to say it.
Oh, I see. It's like naming Voldemort. :)
ReplyDelete