1. This is my birthday week. I will have turned a whopping 49 by the time you read this. Part of me cannot believe that I am this age. When I was a kid, being 49 was ancient. Now that I have arrived there, I want to take back those sentiments I had when I was young. In all honesty, I have gotten to nearly a half-century in fairly good condition. Sure, my joints can be achy, I might need reading glasses in the near future, and stubborn weight is harder to shed, but compared to some at my age I have it good. I’ve had friends who have had joint replacements, major heart surgeries, and even some who have passed on. I can deal with a stiff elbow or a bit of squinting. It makes me feel like I have arrived at this point in my life in this condition for a reason. It all comes back to chasing my dreams. I am unmarried with no kids and in relatively good shape at 49. That has to mean something, right? Currently, there are no major roadblocks between me and the road I’ve been on for decades. It’s another year, another proclamation that I have no intention of stopping my pursuit of my dream life. The only difference between me this week and before my birthday is maybe a little more confidence and a little more urgency. Yes, my body and circumstances are still good today, but how long does that last? It might not be a ‘now or never’ situation quite yet, but it is more of a ‘get your ass in gear’ situation. I have a ton I want to do before I hit the big 5-0 in a year. Time to get to it, because you need to take full advantage of every day. You never know what tomorrow brings.
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| Still an open road ahead |
2. I had a surprise early birthday gift this week. While sitting around doing some editing work on a video for my Patreon channel, I got a text message from my Aunt Emma. To my surprise, she was on Cape Cod. She has lived in Las Vegas for the better part of ten years after moving back there with my Uncle Eric from Cape Cod. Throughout my life, they, along with my cousin Patrick, have been some of my favorite people on earth. Once my Uncle Eric passed in January 2023, any time I have with them is precious. Patrick came to visit this past June, and we got to spend more time together than we had in years. When Aunt Emma said that she was on the Cape and that she’d love to get together if my schedule wasn’t busy, you can bet I cleared anything that might have been on my plate. My mindset at this point in life is that you never know when the next time will be, so you need to take full advantage of the chance if you can. It was a quick turnaround, and we met in West Yarmouth at the new Parker’s River Landing. This was a perfect spot for the sentimental connection. On the boardwalk that stretches out over the marsh is a plank with my Uncle Eric’s name on it. I have visited there numerous times since it opened in May due to the connection I feel to my family. The park itself is close enough to where my Nana used to live that it feels like an extension of my childhood memories. Aunt Emma and I met at the park at 2pm. We walked out to the boardwalk and talked while standing at Uncle Eric’s plank. In a small way, as we spoke about him, it felt like he was there. In total, we spent a little over two hours together, and I enjoyed every second. It was a perfect early birthday gift. We chatted about life, family, and plans for the future. She had to leave to go back to our cousins’ house to watch the Patriots game. Before I left the park, I walked back out and captured a few photos of the sunset. It was partially so that she would have a beautiful sunset photo of the spot that holds a little bit of a special meaning when it comes to my uncle. Like I said, you never know what tomorrow brings, so take full advantage of the time you have with those who matter.
3. The weather for my birthday week was nothing short of spectacular. It was like a second summer with sun and temperatures between 65 and 70 most days. Now, granted, I was inside at work for much of the week, but it did feel good to step outside after dark and only need a light long-sleeve instead of dressing like I was going to hike the Himalayas. I was able to catch the sunset one afternoon, and it was worth it. I did find it particularly ironic that once it was time for me to have a day off from my day job, it decided to rain. That’s fine; my Fridays are typically spent doing creative work and other exciting things like laundry. Even though it happens every year, it is still an odd feeling to be outside in the darkness at 5 pm. It becomes odder when we inevitably have a warm-up during the fall. So you stand outside feeling like it’s summer, but yet it’s pitch black out at 5pm. It’s pretty confusing. Oh well, I’d much rather be confused like that than have the early cold snap where it’s the same setup only with temperatures near freezing.
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| Birthday sunset |
4. I fully admit that I am not the greatest when it comes to keeping in touch with people. It’s not anything malicious or even intentional. Part of it is that I feel the need to fill most of any free time I have with creative projects in a never-ending quest to find success. I guess another part comes down to feeling like I am bothering people. That comes from childhood and finding that a lot of the time the only way to make it through the day unscathed was to make myself as small as possible. You can’t get in trouble if you’re nowhere to be found. Today I frame it as everybody has lives, families, and their own busy schedules. Maybe I text them at a time when they’re super busy, and I am seen as a pain in the ass bothering them. I know that is highly unlikely, but it’s a childhood trauma manifesting in middle age. Birthdays end up being a built-in excuse to reach out, or to have people reach out to you. That’s a big reason why on social media I go out of my way to respond to every person who reaches out. A lot of people will post one mass thank you to all who contacted them, and that’s fine. I figure if the other 364 days of the year I worry about bothering people, then at least I can be interactive with lots of them on my birthday. The irony is that I am fully aware of this issue. I know that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed and that if I am thinking of someone, I should reach out. Still I tend to not do it. I’d like to say that I’ll try to do better, but I’ve also said that ad nauseam over the last several years.
5. For as much as I push myself trying to make a career in some sort of creative field, I try my best to keep the wider view of things as well. What I mean is I never keep looking further down the road so much that I forget to see and appreciate what I already have. Anytime I sell a book. Anytime someone downloads a podcast episode, or watches a YouTube video, or engages with any of my content, I am so appreciative. I never lose sight of the fact that I draw engagement on something created from my mind. When I have speaking events, I never forget to stop and look around and realize those people took time out of their day to leave their houses and come out to hear me speak on something I created and am passionate about. This week I received a nice email from a podcast listener saying that they love my show and asking where they could leave a review. I made sure to respond with a heartfelt thank you. I don’t know if things would change if I were getting dozens or more emails daily about the show. I don’t know what the breaking point would be where I couldn’t respond to everyone, but I haven’t reached it yet. Any sort of creator should do their best to make sure they never lose sight of those who are supporting them, no matter how big or small the numbers are. Thank you to anyone and everyone who checks out any of my content in whatever form you do.
6. There was one helluva storm this week. I figured we’d get some rain, but oh boy, it was sheets of rain. Of course the storm had to happen on the day that I normally head out to do laundry. It was a waiting game of when the rain would let up enough that I wouldn’t need waders just to get to my car. There was visible lightning, loud cracks of thunder, and almost white-out conditions of rain for much of Friday. My white car was basically coated in dead leaves from the weather. The only good thing when I finally ventured outside was that there weren’t many other people on the road or at the laundromat. Also, it didn’t matter too much that it was raining as far as laundry went since I was only washing the clothes. They didn’t need to be dry since I’d be going home to use the dryer. I did make a mistake, however, by not throwing the long sleeve I was wearing outside in with the rest of the clothes in the dryer. That damn thing was soaked, and only when the laundry was done did I look at it hanging on a doorknob and think I should’ve just heaved it in the dryer with the rest. Oh well.
7. I received an unexpected birthday gift at work this week. For more than a year, I have been a fan of a piece of therapy equipment we had called Truvaga. It is a handheld vagus nerve stimulator. Think of kind of a portable TENS unit, but a little more elaborate. The vagus nerve is the longest in the body and controls many things, including the body’s ‘fight or flight’ mechanism. Truvaga helps with relaxation, stress relief, overall mood, and more in a short two-minute session. I routinely used it before leaving at the end of my shift. The ‘stress relief’ setting had me feeling as relaxed as if I’d popped an edible within 40 to 45 minutes. I was shocked when I opened the gift bag to find that very Truvaga unit inside. I will be honest, receiving it as a gift has left me a bit uncomfortable, as the machine itself costs $500 brand new. When shopping for gifts for coworkers, we have all stuck to roughly $30, so this, I feel, puts pressure on me. I don’t know if it’s because my boss can sense a growing frustration with my pay, which I have mentioned recently in these blogs. Maybe they all really just wanted me to have it since I used it so much. Still, this reeks of a scene in The Office. They’re doing Secret Santa with a spending limit of $20, and Michael buys Ryan a video iPod, which costs $400 because he got him and really wants him to like him. That’s how this gift makes me feel. It’s like a shiny toy to distract me from other things. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with it and use it daily, but if given the choice, I’d have rather been given something more in line with the money we’ve all spent on each other in the past.
8. You ever see a certain type of vehicle on the road and immediately have a picture in your head of who is driving it? This happens all the time when I see the pickup truck with obnoxiously large tires, gigantic bright rear-facing lights, and sounding like five jets are taking off beside me. During a drive after dark this week, I saw three suck trucks all in a row driving in front of me. These ass hats were flashing lights at each other and swerving in their lanes. I don’t know if they were friends messing around, or just dipshits who don’t care about anyone else, but I did get an image in my head of what they likely all looked like. I pictured a fat, middle-aged, balding, white guy with a beard. They also likely got the oversized everything to make up for being undersized in their manhood. I would say if I lined up ten such trucks, eight of them would have owners that fit nearly all of the criteria that I laid out. Maybe no beard. Maybe not balding. Maybe not super fat. But they’ve got at least a few of those features. If you have a big-ass pickup truck and use it to tow a boat or a trailer, this doesn’t refer to you. If you have such a truck just as your daily vehicle, I’d recommend a diet, a shave, and Rogaine.
9. If you have 25K followers on Instagram, and yet you post weekly saying you try so hard despite having a very small following, you need a slap. This does refer to someone that I started following. I didn’t realize how obnoxious they would be. I liked their photos, and they would say they were sharing their home in New England and were trying to build their following. In reality, they have currently just over 25,000 followers. I would wager a guess that 99% of people on Instagram have fewer followers than they do, and yet they constantly act like they have a handful of people seeing their stuff. It’s gotten to be as annoying as rich people pretending that pumping their own gas or going to the grocery store is akin to saving a baby from a fire. I currently have 6,400 followers on IG and am beyond thrilled that so many people choose to follow me. I would love to have two or three times the followers; anybody would. But I’m not going to whine in my posts about a small follower count like a fool. Maybe I should? Who knows, maybe that’s how they got so many people to follow them, constantly whining.
10. This week was the bi-annual dock placement. For the last five years, I have helped my buddy Steve either put in or remove a dock from a couple’s waterfront property. It’s easier putting it in than taking it out due to it being spring and having the summer to look forward to. Taking it out in the fall is harder because the dock is in the water and is covered in slime and dirt. In the spring, I was on the fence about coming out to put the dock in again. There are a few nagging issues with my right elbow, left shoulder, and left knee that make hauling several heavy pieces of dock down forty steps a bit of a hassle. I did it, though, which meant I had to come back and remove it. That’s only fair. However, I did let Steve know this was likely my last rodeo as far as dock removal. It was a beautiful day for dock removal with temperatures near 60 and partly sunny skies. The big thing to remember with this dock is that there are two people carrying one end, with only me on the other. I don’t have to get in the water, but I do have to carry the load of two people, not really a fair trade. I have to carry my end and walk backward up the steps to the yard where the dock is placed for the winter. The dock comes in three pieces. The first trip up was uneventful. The second was a different story. Steve and the homeowner had some difficulty with the dock, and it began drifting to my left. I had to brace and hold on to keep the dock from spilling over the side of the stairway. I held on but felt a crunch and pop between my shoulder blades, around T4 and T5 for those who know the spine. It was like a punch in the back. I finished the rest of the job but did tell Steve my back really hurt. I knew in that moment I was not coming back again. We’re all getting older, and even though it’s a quick cash grab for less than thirty minutes of work, I still feel like the likelihood of injuries is only going to grow. Oh well, it was a good five-year run, but I’ve got enough little nagging injuries to heal without adding herniated discs in my thoracic spine to it.
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