This weekend I turn old…
Well, older than I am right now and each year it always feels like it is has more of an “umpf” than the previous year. I’m only 36 (if I do the math right, I’m about to be 37), and that still puts me at what could be considered my healthy, cool, and on a good day, possibly sexy years.
Yes I’m older, but I’m not voting Republican yet or watching Fox, but my back does bother me from time to time… but that may be more related to the 32 lbs., three-year old who expects to be carried on my back, or shoulders, or in front in a flying-type formation as if he is Superman (He also likes to make “zer” noises while he does it, making me wonder why Superman has a motor).
But 36 for me represented one thing…
This was the same age Indiana Jones was when he fought the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Yeah, it is Indiana Jones age!
That gave the age a certain slickness to it that I didn’t consider before for the other years. Could I stand up to snakes or be chased by boulders?…
Maybe…
OK, probably not, but it is the same age and look at all of the cool stuff Prof. Jones did!
That was the age he was called upon to save the world. And he did it with flying colors (Let’s be honest, he really didn’t do much to stop the Nazis and actually helped them find the Ark, get the Ark, and open the Ark, but he still fought them along the way and that should count for something, right?).
I know it is only fiction, I get that, but for a kid who remembers vividly seeing the movie for the first time (and attending the same college George Lucas did because of it), it resonates.
This was the age when bad-ass stuff could happen.
And now that age is going away and only 37 remains.
37… Three years until 40… and then 41, the same age Jane Austen died.
When I accepted the fact I was an atheist (with some leanings towards agnosticism on a good day), time seemed to mean more. It is precious. It is not a test, with a reward at an end. It’s a moment to relish.
This is it, there is only this one shot each year and then…
Brr… I feel a little cold.
On Wednesday I had to get a new Driver’s License and picture, capture the image of my new age, my new time in life. And I even checked the box for an organ donor, darkly thinking of a part of me living on after my brain has stopped functioning. Yeah, this is what birthdays do to my thoughts.
Yet, being a parent, has given me a new way of looking at time. Seeing my boy, get taller, vocabulary increasing, etc., the time there impacts me in a different way. I can understand why some would find faith at the moment of a child’s birth, but for me it seemed all very natural. Like an instinct kicking in.
And that instinct, relates also to my parenting and how I view the little Superman flying in my arms. There is an immortality there. No, no, not the idea of heaven and judgments, etc., but of meaning. See a part of who I am is there, I can see it behind his eyes and with what he does. Oh, he is his own person, but I can still see some of myself there, along with my wife, and even some of his grandparents.
But it is more than genetics. It’s in the things I take time to really give him. The things I emphasize in teaching him, or exposing him to. That stuff carries on too.
So having my son, does help some with the whole aging thing. And when they sing the Birthday song to me and bring out the cake, I’ll smile.
But I will also fight back at least one tear for losing Indy.
My four-year old son has four superhero capes, he is very careful to choose the right one to wear on a given day.
The Stories of Scott D. Southard 