Happy birthday to me

Today's my 48th birthday. I'm not upset about it, but I do miss that halcyon time when a birthday ranked just behind Christmas in the pantheon of Days That Can't Come Too Soon.

Mind you, I can't be bothered to go so far as to dread birthdays, but neither can I work up the sort of enthusiasm I used to feel for them, either -- which is a shame.

It was my 29th birthday that ruined it for me. Most people wait until their 30th to allow their angst about aging to fully flower, but I saw no reason to wait. I was such an utter mess on my 29th that my 30th was a relative walk in the park.

But since then, honestly, I've not fretted much about birthdays -- not even the milestone ones: the Jesus birthday (33), the Over-the-Hill birthday (40). Even my 50th, which is on the horizon and getting closer by the day, doesn't alarm me. They're just numbers, after all, and there's not a damned thing you can do about them -- except to stop having them, which is not an attractive option.

And I feel as healthy, youthful, and energetic as I ever did (which, no doubt, says something about my state of body and mind in my twenties and thirties), so seeing my personal odometer flip over to 48 from 47 just doesn't mean that much to me. My ever-grayer hair no doubt outs me as on the far side of 45, but otherwise, I don't think anyone would peg me as nearing fifty (he said, hopefully).

So I'm left just counting down the hours till midnight, when this "special day" will have passed, and I can enjoy 364 blissful days of not giving my (advanced) age a first -- much less a second -- thought.