Yesterday was my birthday. The last few years in the weeks preceding my birthday a pall would fall over me. Since reaching 50 something has changed. All my friends are enjoying and celebrating their fifties and, for the most part, so am I. But each year now, just after the New Year a heaviness settles over me. A sense that my time for future plans and adventures is growing shorter. A relentless parade at night through my solitude of every poor choice and bad decision I've ever made, leading to a grim re-examination of my life. I'm flooded with a million what-ifs at countless branchings of the decision tree that have led to now. What if I'd had the courage to study abroad in Scotland when I was in college? What if I'd stayed in journalism? What if I'd handled things better and with more heart with any number of the women that I've loved? What if I'd been stronger and not broken after my divorce?
To make it plain, approaching my birthday I am not fit for human consumption. I am moody, irritable, consumed by feelings of loss and regret. I look in the mirror and wonder what happened to the young man full of ideas and audacity. When did he get replaced by the introspective guy with salt and pepper hair and an unruly beard?
Yesterday I took the day off work. The rain had cleared and I had decided to surf. The ocean, for me, has always been a place of healing. Absolution and repose in a salty embrace along with the forlorn cries of the gulls. I was also a little anxious. In winter my surfing generally goes to shit. My work schedule isn't compatible with weekday surfing and early winter sunsets. Winter weather or terrible wind conditions wipe out entire weekends. The waves seem inhospitable and my board feels like a stranger.
Before I got online to check conditions I got a text. It was a friend that I'd known since grade school. She wished me a happy birthday and said, "Here's to not being like every other old bastard," and attached a photo of a trio of old tattooed guys.
I got up and went back to the mirror. Over the last 10 years I've been slowly acquiring more and more tattoos. I have no doubt that one day I'll look just like those guys. I looked at every line, ink and artistry under my skin, earned with intent, sacrifice and perseverance. It's a roadmap of choices that left wear marks on my soul deep enough they could no longer be kept hidden.
I saw the lines to my path on the warrior's road, to a 10 year study in martial arts that allowed me to find undiscovered wells of dedication, strength and fortitude. Of mentors who opened up new vistas the mind/body connection and how learning to rain down merciless punishment on your fellow man can be a path to inner peace.
I saw the dust on the soles of my shoes and the sand on my feet from every step that I've taken in Central America, Africa, Asia and Australia. The crusty salt left over from every amazing wave I've tried to master across the face of the globe. The smiles I somehow earned from all the amazing people that I was blessed to have encountered on my journeys, citizens of the world with a bit of kindness for a clumsy, hapless American.
I saw the places in my heart that have been touched by people that love me. Students, surfers, colleagues, partners in crime, old flames and childhood friends. The embrace of a brother that I had thought long lost and reclaimed through random chance and forgiveness. The faces of people that care for me despite my being remote and insular.
As I traced every line I saw that by body is marked, not with poor choices and regrets, but with joys, triumphs, and adventures. Each one an indelible snapshot of achievements from the past 10 years that I will wear proudly until the end of my days. Every bare expanse of skin and empty canvas beckoning to whatever is in store over the horizons of birthdays yet to come.
In the end I took my board to the ocean and surfed the day away with a far lighter heart than I'd had in weeks.
Here's to not being like every other old bastard.
