A Blog A Day...

36, Day 1 - Since so many changes will be taking place over the next year, and since I am beginning my 36th year today, I thought this would be a good excuse and opportunity to document these changes on a day to day basis. So here it goes...

Today began like every other day. I’ve long since outgrown the expectation that your birthday will be different than every other day, but I’ve also grown to understand that this is ok. It doesn’t have to be magically memorable to be a good day. I’ve learned to appreciate each day of life as special and filled with memorable moments. Admittedly, thirty-six is weird to say and think about, because I vividly remember my parents at this age. I had just turned nineteen and gotten married when mom and dad were the age I am now. It’s funny to me that even though your body ages, your mind never does seem to. I am more mature and sensible than when I was a teenager, but honestly, I still think the way I did as a teen. I wonder if you ever stop seeing yourself as a teenager, or if, even in an eighty year old body, your mind still “feels” eighteen? Guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Here are my birthday highlights so far (it is only 8:30 am). Got up, back still hurting terribly, got ready, drank chocolate milk, folded church bulletins, straightened up house, woke everyone, typed up a letter for the house loan, read and responded to Facebook birthday wishes, sat down to begin this blog post. Nick and Amber are here and that is fun. I am going to be preaching my antepenultimate sermon at Fairview this morning.

It has started to feel weird as I begin to realize that I only have, after today, two more Sundays as a local preacher. I am excited and looking forward to the changes, but at the same time, it will be weird and I will have to feel my way through it. It is ironic that last year on my birthday I was bedridden with a blood clot in my leg and had to miss church for the first time since being restored fifteen years earlier and today, I am not bedridden, but my back is totally messed up and has been for weeks. I guess from here on out I can expect to get a new ailment for each birthday. Sounds about right seeing as how I am closer to forty than thirty now.