Day 170 – September 24, 2014

Pessimism

Yesterday was the first day of fall. I turn 42 tomorrow.

Like the New Year, birthdays for me are weigh points. As I add one to my age, I realize that life, my life, is finite and time is precious. When I told AJ, “we’re all getting older,” he astutely responded, “it beats the alternative.”

42 finds me in a small one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. I’m unemployed and drifting. I’m having doubts about my 3-year relationship although we mended well last week.

At birthdays, I struggle not to compare my life to others or measure my life to where I thought I should be. In the board game Life, the player spins around the board to pick up career, cash, and family. Where are my house, my wife, my children, my cars, my bank job, my investments, and my suits? Except for a shabby sixteen-year old Toyota, I have not picked up any of these life goods.

I am at sea with rootlessness. I can pack up all my belongings over one long evening to leave town in a U-Haul to parts unknown in the morning. Am I a late bloomer or do I shun standard attachments?

Both triplet brothers are tenured professors at universities where they will likely teach for the rest of their careers. One brother has a wife, two kids, and a house. He succeeds at the Game of Life. The other brother settles single in smalltown Ohio. I wonder what our sedentary, stable parents think of us wanderers.