Homer invited us to a surprise birthday party for his partner Matt. It was a fun little gathering with vegetarian pizza and a delicious homemade birthday cake. They had been to the house the night before for St. Patrick’s Day and Homer brought Irish Soda Bread. Homer is an enjoyable baker.
Homer and Matt have made us feel quite over our nearly first year here in Tucson and I’m very happy to call them both friends.
At the surprise birthday party I was particularly amused with his selection of napkins for the occasion.
A decade or so ago I mentioned to my friend David, who is five days older than me, that I wasn’t afraid of dying but I wasn’t looking forward to aging. I wasn’t ready to accept life as a middle aged man, I didn’t want to have to wear glasses all the time, and I wasn’t ready to go completely gray (not that there’s a lot to go gray anyways).
Here we are over 10 years later and I’m a middle aged man. I’m surviving this just fine. With middle age comes accomplishment and hopefully some wisdom and I feel like I’ve settled pretty well into the role.
I’m flying airplanes with relative ease. I can manage a decent hike with friends. I still can ride my bicycle, and I don’t need vitameatavegamin to stop from pooping out at parties. Sure, I go to bed early when I have to get up early for work. I really don’t like whatever tries to pass as “Popular Music” these days (it all sounds like uninspired, metallic robot noises to me) and I’m losing patience with folks much younger than me that speak with authority on “history” with a remarkable amount of inaccuracy and then want to argue the point even though I was there and they weren’t even born yet.
As a middle aged American man I believe I’ve seen the modern United States as we know it peak about 20 years ago and start to wane. My husband and I have been debating this a little bit. I’ve seen polarization like I’ve never seen before and even family members talk about things, often from very different points of view, in ways we would have never dreamed of discussing a few decades ago.
I take medication to keep important blood test results in check, I proudly wear glasses, and yes, I’ve accepted my gray hair enough to grow my mustache back and feel comfortable with it. I have wrinkles around the eyes, probably from too much smiling over the decades, and my voice is not quite as youthful as it was when I was in Top 40 radio 30 years ago.
And I’m OK with all of this.
Life feels like it’s moving faster and faster. I still don’t feel like a grown up, but I feel like I at least I look the part. I feel absolutely no impulse to change the natural aging process of my body; what you see is what you get. And for the first time in my life, ever, I am comfortable with the way I look.
Truman has been such a good sport about the new puppies in the house, I thought he deserved an extra Caturday post on his behalf.
As I’ve mentioned before, Truman isn’t a cuddler. He doesn’t want to lay on my chest, he doesn’t want to snuggle in between Earl and me for our nighttime slumber, he wants to be close but we can’t cuddle. He’s not even super excited about being held for more than 60 seconds.
However, he does show his love by stationing himself near us at any given time of the day. When I’m working and Earl is doing chores around our bedroom suite or elsewhere in the house, Truman stations himself to keep an eye on everything. When I go to bed at night, he has designed a spot in my closet as his sleeping area. I don’t know how long he stays there as I usually fall asleep and make it through most of the night. But he’ll get himself situated next to the pillow I’ve thrown down there for him and look in my direction until I fall asleep. The photo looks incredibly bright but the lights were actually quite dim; we can thank Apple for the enhancement of the photo.
It’s comforting to know that my feline friend cares enough to make sure I’m well situated for a good night’s sleep.
Truman is relaxing in front of one of the windows in our bedroom keeping an eye on the local wildlife. His casual approach to observation has extended to the puppies as well; there’s been no hisses or signs of aggression, just a few rumbly growls worthy of a male cat.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
