Birthday Reflections- Being a Year Older and Other Thoughts

"So how does it feel to be a year older?"

It's one of those questions people inevitably ask around birthdays... and it's also (to my way of thinking) one of the most meaningless questions on the planet?

How does it feel? I doesn't feel anything... it's simply another day.

I turned 57, yesterday... and I can't say that I spent even a single second contemplating the number, and how it "felt" to somehow be associated with that number. Even though-- in some sense-- it gets to be part of my life for the next 365 days.

Meaningful Years?

Ferry wake in the sunset

Anyway, having had the question surface once again did make me pause to consider the significance of "Years that Mean Something."

Turning 18 definitely "meant" something... it felt tangibly different. I had become "adultish," and there was actually a new world open to me. So that felt like it was a big deal. An interesting side effect-- which I didn't actually consider till many years later-- was that there was also a loss of something-- certain benefits and "get out of jail free" cards one could play as "a child" no longer applied. 

Turning 21 definitely "meant" something... and felt very different because I was now "an adult" and could do whatever I wanted. Or so it seemed. At least, I would be held accountable for the consequences of doing anything I wanted.

Years are Years are Years...

In some senses, turning 30, 40 and 50 seemed to carry far more importance to other people, than to me. Sure, there were celebrations involving black balloons and the traditional statements that now I was "over the hill" and "getting old," but they always struck me as "rituals" enacted to help people look at their own mortality. Or something.

I don't really foresee any future birthdays as having particular "meanings," either... beyond simply marking another passing of another year.

Truthfully, I have never been afraid of death; of dying. 

I have been afraid of... I have been afraid of-- and remain afraid of-- prolonged pain as a precursor to death, but not death itself. The idea of slowly being eaten up by cancer or something similar-- while in excruciating physical pain-- that part scares me. But not the actual end.

But What About Retirement?

People hear me say these things, and "accuse" me of being some kind of strange nihilist. Quite honestly? I don't think I am-- it feels more like I am simply at peace with this whole thing we call "the human experience."

Retirement?

I am not sure what that even really means. So few of us even hold "regular" jobs anymore that we actually get to "retire" from.

I remember my father retiring from the family business-- early, at 59, even-- to pursue his desire to restore old antique paintings and trade them for profit, as a sort of hobbyist, late-in-life second career. He just wanted a shot at doing something he really enjoyed doing, and getting financially rewarded for. Even though he had been the CEO of a manufacturing company started by my grandfather in the 1920s, he never really liked what he was doing.

I doubt I will ever "retire," in the sense we know the word... so a "retirement birthday" will probably not become relevant.