Over the Hill
Yesterday was my birthday, the big four-oh. I am now officially middle-aged, and officially on the decline, mental and physical. I know a lot of people consider the fortieth birthday a big deal, an occasion to make (or, more likely, endure) jokes about aging. But me? I hardly noticed.
Not to say I didn’t celebrate, a little. Eileene and I very nearly share a birthday—hers the 11th, mine the 13th—so we compromised and made a day trip of it on the 12th, at a high-end miniature golf course and a nice restaurant downstate. On my birthday proper, I bought a “tiramisu cake” (Warning for tiramisu fans: it wasn’t much good.) and cut it with my gaming buddies. Ignoring the birthday entirely would be another way of paying it too much attention, a pathetic attempt to pretend that it doesn’t happen if it’s ignored.
But I confess that my attitude towards birthdays gets more low-key every year. don’t want a big party or lots of presents, just a dinner out, maybe a book or a bottle of wine. Perhaps a deeply repressed fear of aging is responsible, but I don’t think so. I think it’s vanishing greed. As a kid, my birthday was a big event, because I could expect new toys. Now I can afford all the toys I really want. No, not “toys.” Other men reaching middle age suddenly decide they want a red sports car or an expensive mistress. When I talk of wanting toys, I literally mean a new board game, or a day out playing miniature golf.
I may be an old goat, but I’m still a kid at heart.