Happy Brithday To Me

So, today is my birthday. Starting today I have to start saying that I'm 43. It just sounds like a dumb age to be.

There are just certain years in your life that sound dumb. Certain ages where it just seems unlikely that something good will happen. Aside from 13, most of 3 ages. 23 and 33 are kind of stupid, but once you get into 43, 53, 63, etc. they just really seem bad. I mean, Paul McCartney didn't write a song called "When I'm 63," now did he?

There are other ones as well. 37 is idiotic. 26 isn't much better. Oddly, 19 is pretty stupid, too. It sounds like a cereal. It's a year of cereal. 59 doesn't sound great either. And, I'm pretty sure that 47 will be another wasted year.

It's not so much the sound of the age -- although that is part of it -- its more about what seem to be dead spots in everyone's life. How many times have you read an interview where the subject said something like, "Well, I wrote my famous novel when I was 43"? Or, "I climbed Mount Everest when I was 26"?

I'm sure stuff like that happens, but it just doesn't seem common. Lots of stuff happens at certain ages. 27 and 28 seem particularly big for both good and bad. 34 has a lot going on. People do things at those ages. But then there are those other times when you're just alive and that's about it.

Maybe since I've frequently not always had quite as much success on the "big" years, I'll get to be one of the oddballs that does do something great in their 43rd year. At least I can try telling my self that so that I can sleep for the next few nights until I just resign myself to spending the next 12 months drooling and twiddling my thumbs.