#53

It happens every year on this date. I celebrate a birthday. And each time I do it, the odds of my doing it again the following year diminish by some indeterminable amount. As I wrote a year ago today, I never expected to make it this far or even get close to it. I expected to be dead before I was thirty, and there have been times when I wished I were, more times than I care to remember. But I’m extremely grateful that I’m here today to post this message, to read and reflect, and to spend the latter part of this special day with my wife and sister-in-law bowling in league and coming home tonight to eat Thai food and birthday cake and go to bed and fall safely asleep in my wife’s loving arms. I’m incredibly fortunate to be blessed with such abundance, and I hope to find a way of giving back more to a world that has given me so much more than I could ever deserve. I’ve always wanted to give at least as much as I take, and the older I get, the less I want to take and the more I want to give out of the sheer, glowing delight of giving. Yet, I’m still struggling to find the best ways to do this and to develop the confidence I need to move forward with them.

I’m determined to make this the year of a great breakthrough, and I hope to be here next year on this date to celebrate it along with another birthday.