I am 40-years-old. There, I’ve said it.  It is on the Internets now so it must be true.  Now, if you are reading this and suddenly scrambling to send me a birthday card or present please note that it has been a few months since the auspicious anniversary of my birth.  (If it helps you feel a bit less guilty about not sending something then, by all means, feel free to do so now.  I certainly don’t want to burden you with guilt.)

The funny thing is I really don’t feel like I thought I would.   After all 40 is O-L-D.  I don’t feel old.  I don’t even think I look all that old.

I really don’t feel all that much different than I did when I was a kid on an early summer day in Bureau, IL.  I remember thinking as I lay on the grass of the school grounds looking up at the sky that I would be 30-years-old when the year 2000 came around.  Boy, would I be old then!  That future date seemed so distant so unreal.

Well, now it has been 10 years since the world came to a screeching halt on the advent of Y2K.  I didn’t feel old then (Though my wife thought I was and bought me a wallet for my birthday! But that’s a story for another time…) and I certainly don’t feel old now, a decade later.  In fact, other than being a little slower to get myself moving, I really don’t feel much older that when I was gazing up at the clouds.

Am I really no longer a kid?  I close my eyes and swear I can still hear the sound of a tennis ball hitting the windowless side of our 3 story brick school house as I play “tennis” with Missy Newburn.  I can smell the grass, the dirt, the tennis ball, the laughter.  I can feel the warm gentle breeze and can see the aged dark bricks.  Was it really that long ago?  Sometimes I feel like I just blinked and went from there to here from then to now.

When people get old don’t they become grown-ups?  And aren’t grown-ups supposed to be responsible and, well, boring?  Shouldn’t a grown-up conform to society and play by it’s rules and regulations?  If that’s the case then I am most certainly not some boring ol’ grown-up!

Does this look like a grown-up to you?

Responsible?  Me?  Now I guess there is a part of the definition that might apply from time to time (the being the cause or explanation part), when one generally thinks of “responsible” I doubt that I come to mind.  What?  Well, yes, I am married and, yes, I’m raising my 3 kids…  Hmmm?  Yes, I have my own photography business.  But…But…. Yes, I do take a leadership role when necessary, but I don’t think that…  Alright!! OK, so I am a little responsible, but not in a boring, old person sort of way.

C’mon!  Look at me!  I don’t do old, grown-up stuff.  I don’t wear a suit and go to work in a boring ol’ office and for the most part never have.  I don’t drive a mini-van.  I don’t watch any movies with Barbara Streisand or Bette Miller in them.    I really don’t conform to grown-up ideas of work, government or religion.  I’m quite the rebel, you know.  I believe in working to live, not living to work;  a government by the people for the people, not by the elite for the big corporations; and I believe in loving others, not judging others.

Well, anyway……uh…um…what was I talking about?  Sorry, I lost my train of thought.  The memory isn’t quite as good as it…..Oh wait!  Darn.  I guess, maybe I am old.

Nah!

Seriously, just because we are older doesn’t mean that we just sit around and let the rest of our lives just pass us by.  Get up and change the world. I am and, God willing, I will.