The Big Four Oh
Oct. 2nd, 2003 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralenWoohooo! I've made it this far! Yay for being older!! Far better than any alternatives.
*grin* Okay. I'll admit it. Having someone that was once very close to me call me 40 when I was just 36 has made this 'milestone' something of a joke, in some ways. Okay. I'm here. Still capable of out-thinking, out-running, and when cornered out-fighting most of the folks I come across. Still not great at just talking to them, though. Still learning, still loving, still looking for adventures, though most of them are far, far closer to home.
I'm doing fucking fantastic, emotionally, compared to when I turned 30, though I sometimes miss that soccer player's body without all the damage I gradually inflicted on it. 30 was just before M*. 30 was with Fezzik. 30 was just getting off the high-speed embedded processors and going to a software job that started with customer interviews. 30 was soccer three times a week, a house in the woods with streams, and dancing in the rain. 30 was the chatsubo and myself turned into a fictional character...
I'm a lot more self-confident and capable of speech and knowing when to just shut up as it's energy wasted than when I was 20, though I miss the energy of being able to do 72 hours straight on a single project. 20 was my masters at UW after Caltech, the loneliness of a HUGE SCHOOL halftime. 20 was when the net was flat and I had fun routing my own email and both my sister and I explored the Internet and had a blast. 20 was getting used to yet another city after having moved six times as a kid. But this city was magic with rain...
10 was pretty good, but I am far, far less dependent than I was then, far more capable of verbal and physical self-defense and I learned a lot more about what was going on around me, now. I rather miss that bone-deep knowledge of what was right and wrong with the world, sometimes. But I think I dream more now than I did then. 10 was Indiana, corn fields and singing and art at school. 10 was beating up a bully that was making my sister cry. 10 was falling into a car while biking to school and showing the school nurse a mouth full of blood. 10 was running through other people's yards to play with my best friend, Lisa who was from the UK, blonde with a British accent and cooking with Michelle's Italian mama who hid the recipe card because it was a family recipe while their pet ocelot watched us from its glass cage...
It's fun to remember...
And it's funny to have started this day with getting cough syrup for myself, going into work as normal, and we're probably going to do the rec. center tonight. Nothing special. My birthday dinner'll be on the weekend when we can properly prepare... *grin*
*grin* Okay. I'll admit it. Having someone that was once very close to me call me 40 when I was just 36 has made this 'milestone' something of a joke, in some ways. Okay. I'm here. Still capable of out-thinking, out-running, and when cornered out-fighting most of the folks I come across. Still not great at just talking to them, though. Still learning, still loving, still looking for adventures, though most of them are far, far closer to home.
I'm doing fucking fantastic, emotionally, compared to when I turned 30, though I sometimes miss that soccer player's body without all the damage I gradually inflicted on it. 30 was just before M*. 30 was with Fezzik. 30 was just getting off the high-speed embedded processors and going to a software job that started with customer interviews. 30 was soccer three times a week, a house in the woods with streams, and dancing in the rain. 30 was the chatsubo and myself turned into a fictional character...
I'm a lot more self-confident and capable of speech and knowing when to just shut up as it's energy wasted than when I was 20, though I miss the energy of being able to do 72 hours straight on a single project. 20 was my masters at UW after Caltech, the loneliness of a HUGE SCHOOL halftime. 20 was when the net was flat and I had fun routing my own email and both my sister and I explored the Internet and had a blast. 20 was getting used to yet another city after having moved six times as a kid. But this city was magic with rain...
10 was pretty good, but I am far, far less dependent than I was then, far more capable of verbal and physical self-defense and I learned a lot more about what was going on around me, now. I rather miss that bone-deep knowledge of what was right and wrong with the world, sometimes. But I think I dream more now than I did then. 10 was Indiana, corn fields and singing and art at school. 10 was beating up a bully that was making my sister cry. 10 was falling into a car while biking to school and showing the school nurse a mouth full of blood. 10 was running through other people's yards to play with my best friend, Lisa who was from the UK, blonde with a British accent and cooking with Michelle's Italian mama who hid the recipe card because it was a family recipe while their pet ocelot watched us from its glass cage...
It's fun to remember...
And it's funny to have started this day with getting cough syrup for myself, going into work as normal, and we're probably going to do the rec. center tonight. Nothing special. My birthday dinner'll be on the weekend when we can properly prepare... *grin*
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 11:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 11:39 am (UTC)And I hope you're still able to dance in the rain at least a little. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:21 pm (UTC)Congrats!
Date: 2003-10-02 11:53 am (UTC)It's very nice to see someone actually doing that.
I'm definitely happier with my life at 29 than I was at 19, or 9. 39 still seems a little intimidating, but I guess we only have to be ready for now.
Here's to being happier and wiser at 50 than at 40! (When Jet is a teenager, how, um, exciting!)
Re: Congrats!
Date: 2003-10-03 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 12:58 pm (UTC)(A bit late to send you stuff, but if you would like me to write something for you . . .)
no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:28 pm (UTC)Mmmm.... written present... some of these feel free to link to something that answers my question, if you wish. And only answer these if you wish. *grin*
1. A description of the most interesting and fun event you care to remember publically.
2. What's your most favorite gaming scene that you GM'ed?
3. What's your favorite piece of fan fic? Or even the top five if they're that hard to rate as Number One.
4. What's your favorite character of anything you've written or run?
5. Which of the books you've authored parts of have you liked the most?
Happy Birthday
Date: 2003-10-02 12:58 pm (UTC)Re: Happy Birthday
Date: 2003-10-03 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 01:52 pm (UTC)and hooray for being you!
no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:31 pm (UTC)Thanks!!!
no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-02 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:43 pm (UTC)I like it when the cheesy but true things win anyway...
no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 04:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-03 05:48 pm (UTC)Sometimes, I think that it's the whole concept of "hitting 40" rather than having 40 hit you... knowing it's coming and doing what needs to be done.
I kind of think of your shaping yourself up as something equivalent, in some odd way. Both John and I have started doing the necessary things to make this time good, which is to be in the kind of shape we want to be to do all the things we want to do. Sometimes I think 40 is when a lot of people can give up... othertimes I think 40 is when people lose more of their self-criticality... and then I realize that 40 is when most people have been longer outside of their parents' influence than when they've been in.
That's a biggie, for me.