Move over, Methusalah

A few months ago I turned 40. Well, okay, it was exactly 120 months ago today.

When I was a battalion commander, I used to tell young Marines who were in my office for some transgression or other that they needed to think about where they wanted to be in 20 years, because the decisions they were making today would have impact on the rest of their lives. I would try to impress upon them how fast time goes by in one's life, "Marine, when I went to bed last night I was 21. I woke up this morning and I was 42." Well, my words always come back to haunt me. I dreamed last night that I was sprinting (well, trying to anyway) down the sidelines of a college flag football game and couldn't figure out why the defensive back was just walking along beside me. I woke up, and dang it, I'm fifty.

I have tried to prepare myself for this day. For the past several months, I have been telling myself that I'm already fifty--kind of like the stock market factoring in an expected hike of interests rates by the Federal Reserve Board. I'll have to stay alert today, though. If a wayward wrinkle in the technology sector of my brain starts to panic despite the preparation, I might have to temporarily shut down trading (take a nap) to prevent a crash.

My younger brother expressed great glee in an e-mail the other day, pointing out that I was now offically an old man. I reminded him that "revenge hath no match like a brother whose taunting sibling has just joined him at the half century mark." To which he countered that was three years off, and being so old, I would probably have forgotten the whole thing by then. Not so, little bro--I have the archives of this blog to remind me!

My wife's 50th is still 8 months off, so for the better part of this year, I'll be able to brag about being married to a younger woman.