Older and Doing Okay

I am now officially older than I was.

As a historian I know that this process happens gradually, day by day, a steady accretion of time that has no borders, but there is something about a calendar that sticks in the human mind and we as a species always know, pretty much to the day, when another year has gone by. One day doesn’t feel all that different from the next, but the differences accumulate and suddenly you realize that the world you lived in not that long ago is gone and it’s a whole new world that greets you in the morning.

You learn that as you get older. You learn a lot of things as you get older.

It was a good birthday once I got past all the grading that had to be done and moved on with the rest of the day. All four of us were together and we had dinner and played cards and talked, and that’s pretty much all I ever want for my birthday these days. I made General Tso Chicken. Oliver came out ahead in our Phase 10 game. We enjoyed each other’s company, as we always do.

I don’t know how people get good photos out of cell phone cameras, but perhaps the graininess is part of the story as well.

After our card game Lauren took me out to see her friends at a local purveyor of fine beverages now that everyone is legally allowed to do that and they all sang happy birthday to me when I got there, which was lovely. I’ve known many of them for a decade now. They’re good people to talk with and very welcoming. Aleksia even bought me a Green Tea Shot for my birthday and it was tasty!

I stayed about an hour, until the clock ticked over to midnight and we sang happy birthday to Aleksia, and then I went home where the old people go at that hour so the younger folks can do their thing on their own. It was a marvelous way to end the day.

It’s not such a bad thing getting older when you have family and friends to share it with.