On Birthday 41 and the Things I’ve Learned
Some things don’t change. We are creatures of habit. But we’re also creatures of evolution, and while basking in the happiness that familiarity brings, we also find ourselves on our birthdays with a heart and a brain full of things learned. So, taking my inspiration from a Don Hall tradition of recounting those things leaned in the past year, here’s the short list of what my forty-first trip around the Sun has revealed to me.
The Green Snowflake: A Christmastime Story
We all lean in and blow on the cake candles. Hollering and hugging. Laughing and clapping at once. It’s the sort of moment you know you can’t keep, just like you can’t freeze time, so instead you just look right into everyone’s smile and wish on the future for more moments just like it.
He was tired of carrying her weight. Her financial choices and responsibilities. Her alcoholism. And he knew she was tired of his drug abuse and laziness and porn addiction. And Train played. And the guy kept talking. “Thing is, man… if it weren’t for divorce, I’d have student loans.”