A Year of 50 #2: Here's My F*cking Superpower

I had a rough time as a kid.  Reading was an escape for me.  I started with Hardy Boys and other kid related books but was soon reading at an adult level.  Soon I was out with Quint, Brody and Hooper hunting a giant shark, or on a quest through Middle Earth or exploring other worlds under alien suns.

When things got bad though, when I was afraid to go home or when I wandered neighborhoods far away because there wouldn't be any kids that knew me there, I always ended up in comic books.  I prayed for a superpower.  Something to make me special, even if it was a secret, that would elevate me above being taunted by other kids or being ridiculed and neglected by my family.

The Hulk was my favorite.  I kept a lot of rage bottled up as a kid.  What attracted me to the Hulk was the prospect of letting go, letting that rage loose with no regret or remorse.  How gloriously freeing that would have felt, or so I thought at the time.  I did let go a few times but, not living in the pages of a comic book, there were consequences.  And those consequences made me bottle up the anger and rage even more.

This ended up following me into adulthood.  Shocking.  But by this time all the boxed up rage had fermented and compacted down to a deep and persistent sadness.  No longer did I want to smash.  I just wanted to disappear.  I discovered old time radio shows and I would think how peaceful it would be to become The Shadow.  To cloud men's minds and just disappear seemed like such a restful way to live.


To steal a line from Stephen King, "the world moved on."  The rage and the desire to disappear are gone, left in the rubble of the past along with the sad and angry man that I used to be.  How surprising then to find, here in my 50th year, that I actually do have a superpower.

January 2nd, 2017:
 

I can't leap tall buildings in a single bound (but I did vault a rambunctious Schnauzer on my way to get a haircut this morning), I have no high-tech armored suit (but I have conditioned my body to take far more physical punishment than nearly everyone I know) and I can't shout, "Flame on!" and become a living pillar of fire (but I do try and approach life each day with the passion of a thousand suns.)  I have come to understand that in real life superpowers are more subtle and nuanced.  And, like manufacturing an adventure filled life, it's a matter of perception and acceptance.


I found all this out on January 2nd while donating blood.  I started donating regularly not too long after I moved to San Diego.  I used to date a Roller Derby girl and on a whim donated when a blood-mobile from the local blood bank was at one of their events.  Two happy happy things occurred through the failure of our relationship.  She went on to marry a man that makes her incredibly happy and they have an amazing little boy.  And I went on to become a regular blood donor.  I like to think that because of that relationship, somewhere, a life got saved.  Or at the very least a number of people got helped on the way to recovering from their injuries.


On this occasion at the end of my donation, when they were reading off my blood type and such, something different happened.  After the usual medial esoterica the nurse said, "rare."  I was surprised.  I'm B+, not really a rare blood type.  So I asked, "What was that bit about rare?"

It turns out that I have a comparatively rare blood antigen that can help certain people heal more quickly after a transfusion or if they are only compatible to blood with my special sauce.  I won't be bringing tribbles or Captain Kirk back to life, but in another small and unique way I can help people.

I was thrilled.  It was like finding out that the squirrel that bit me when I was in high-school really was radioactive, that I had secret squirrel powers all along and never knew it.  It was something special and unique about myself that it took 50 years of life to discover.  I felt that if something like that could reveal itself later in life, what other strange and mysterious things are going to unfold in my life before I get planted in a pine box.

It may not seem like much to you.  But to the former hurt, angry and neglected kid that still sleeps in a dark corner of the tattered tennis shoe that is my soul, that's a f*cking superpower to be proud of and right now he's telling be to go out and buy a cape.  

A Year of 50 #1: We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat...

Yesterday was my 50th birthday.  I started getting freaked out about turning 50 back in December, even before Christmas.  Suddenly shit just got real.  Real like the look on Roy Scheider's face the first time he sees Bruce the shark.  I remember my contemporaries being upset when 40 reared it's dreaded head.  For me 40 was a piece of cake.  I didn't understand what all the fuss was about.  In December I did, in a big way.

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

The people close to me saw it.  I was remote and freaked out.  I asked for advice from friends, from my contemporaries that had recently crossed the void between 49 and 50, I asked my older friends.  I asked the internet, but it just told me to look at porn.  All of them blew past 50 with nary a second glance.  I actually wanted to punch everyone who said to me, "50 is the new 30."  No, "50 is the new 30 but I've fucked off for 20 years and been busted by the AARP."

I didn't like the way I was feeling.  I wanted to banish the sense of dread that was hanging over me.  I resolved to put all my determination into making my 50th year an epic year.  And that's why you're reading this.  Back when I was getting divorced, to make sense of the massive shitstorm my life was becoming, I turned to photography.  I participated in the 365 Days Project.  This was back before selfies were a thing but I made an effort to take a self portrait a day for year.  I also began writing more and more to try and bleed the sadness out of me.  Like lancing a boil. To cut to the chase, after a fashion, it worked.  So, I came to the decision to resurrect my old blog as a means of putting my money where my mouth is and document the epic-ness as it ensues.

For these first few entries I'm technically cheating and starting before I actually turned 50.  I guess in White House terms this will be the alternative-timeline of my 50th year.

December 31st, 2016:

 
One of the things that I realized what that my internal turmoil about turning 50 had made me hyper-aware of the "failings" of my body.  I was feeling aches and pains, the stuff that makes you feel old.  Plus I had noticed numbers on the scale that were creeping into the troubling zone.  Two years ago before I went on a surfing trip to Morocco I had resolved to be in better shape.  I lost 27lbs before surfing North Africa.  I felt great.  Not only physically from the lost bulk, but emotionally as well.  I was proud that I'd accomplished something that had been eluding me for years.  In the intervening two years a fair amount of the weight has crept back on. 

Goal #1 - Return to my Morocco weight or below.  I'm a pretty active guy.  Surfing, volleyball and martial arts keep me active 6 days a week.  December, however, had thrown me off.  Holiday scheduling kept me mostly off the volleyball court and a rainy December had kept me from surfing.  I had to do something.  So on a cloudy and cold New Year's Eve morning I took it upon myself to take a run down at La Jolla Shores.  Running always seems like a great idea until I actually run.  I hate the plodding, heavy, graceless feel of my body when I run.  I have some ankle and knee issues.  The first quarter mile has me contemplating joint replacement.  I mean, it worked out pretty good for Steve Austin.  But as I relax and try to become more smooth in my gait the inner chatter damps down and get to the business of just getting this shit over with.
 
I'm running barefoot on the beach and the sand is satisfyingly cold and wet.  The ocean and the sky are a palette of muted grays.  The tide is up and for a few hundred feet my running companions are a flock of sandpipers who eventually get annoyed with me and take wing.  Somewhere the gulls are crying out like they're beating up a little kid and stealing his bag of chips.

I get to the pier and turn around.  On the way back I see a seal pop his head out of the surf, maybe only 10 feet off shore.  He watches me lumber by with a a surprised, "you don't see that every day," kind of expression.  Stupid seal.  If I were a seal, body fat would be an advantage.  I could endure the cold ocean and hot female seals would think I'm sexy.

Eventually I make it back to the parking lot and see three Asian kids with a 35mm DSLR posing Stormtrooper actions figures in the sand and taking photos.  Probably making wildly creative dioramas.  I feel like they should run more.  In the end I make another trip to the pier and back, this time walking.  All in all, two miles.  I call it good and hope for sunny weather to surf in so I never have to run again.  

Certainly not my proudest moment and, to some, barely qualifying as a run.  But I'm proud that I got out there and did it.  Baby steps toward not needing a bigger boat...