The body is weary.
The body is worn.
The body is bruised, achy and torn.
This is 49, and it comes after a ferocious summer that took my back out, strained my neck, gave me a second go-round with COVID, and battered me down in numerous other ways unnoticeable to the naked eye. The body betrays us the older we get, even as we struggle to protect it.
After revisiting this date 49 times, one would think I’d have a better grasp of how things should go, of what I’m supposed to be doing. Strangely, with each passing year, I’m discovering that the older I get the less I understand – and there is growing wisdom in that realization and acceptance.
And so I look back with the indulgence that only a birthday can socially sanction (not that I’ve ever denied myself an indulgence on any of the other days). It begins with #48, the uneventful birthday of last year, during the end of a summer that didn’t feel like it would ever end. For #47, it seemed fitting to slip into my birthday suit – a tradition that was part of #46 in a quieter way. During the quiet first year of COVID, #45 stripped things down to basics, harkening to a vintage-tinged past.
Donning a different sort of birthday suit for #44, and the traditional one, and following a couple of summers (and birthdays) off from blogging, things picked up as we skipped to the joyous #41, and the equally-lovely #40. Ten years ago found birthday #39 quietly passing in a New York night. A most basic birthday suit post formed the entry for #38, and that seems as fitting a way to end things on this day. I’m tired.
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