Then the morning came when the world wasn’t on fire.

I opened my bank account, which had become an essential but terrifying daily necessity, so I knew what sort of magic I needed to pull out of an empty pocket and … it was in the black and balanced.  Bills were coming out, healthy income coming in, no massive gas spending or staggering overdrafts; just scheduled payments with income to manage them.

I got ready in the morning at a comfortable pace; I’m not flying all over my flat trying to find everything before I must fly right out the door.  Do I have my eyeglasses?  My headset?  My lunch?  Love from my partner?  Yes?  Alright then.  That was easy.  Now to walk 3 blocks to the trolley stop.

I rode my SEPTA trolley with docile relief, the only required action was simply to maintain balance and 3 to 4 points of contact in the moving platform I was pulled through time and space on.  I get to just be chill and relaxed, keeping enough of an eye open for my stops so I don’t zone out and miss them.  Listening to music and just being… chill.

I get to work, and my boss actually waves and smiles at me.  He gets me up to speed on initiatives we are working on and tells how proud of his team he is, that we put our nose to grind stone to get it done.  I get to my desk, prioritize everything, collaborate with our team, work with my counterpart Sarah, work is productive but overall a solid fit and pleasant.

I go home on the same route, all and all cutting almost an hour off my commute a day, on top of saving a couple hundred a month on the commute.  Not to mention the surmounting stress and rage from 2+ hours of driving. My flat isn’t a crumbling mess that is eroded and dirty from voles (yes, voles) on top of overcrowded and poorly kept because all of the nonsense going on. 

There is no drama in my home; no emotional fires to put out, no excessive neediness, nothing to lose hours on sound and fury amounting to nothing.  It’s lived in but kept clean, orderly, and pleasant in many ways.  We cook 85% of our food at home; no Wawa runs, no Chic-Fil-A – just, good, healthy meals, planned on a budget.

I tend to the pets, pick up my random junk, wash the clothes, put the dishes away that my wife has washed up and put in the rack.  I do some yoga on our clean floor, a few exercises, and walk the dog after feeding the cat.  My phone isn’t blowing up with nonsense; only my wife calls on her way home.  Maybe a phone call from my Mother to make sure I’m still alive (she has been known to do this).

Life is everything I hoped it would be; it nearly took me 4 years to pull it off, but I have finally the life I sought when I moved to Philadelphia.  Really I have the life I have spent my whole life attempting to bring together.  If I was honest, it was closer to 13 to 15 years to get here but I’m here nonetheless.

I turned 40 six months ago.  So strange.

I remember as a kid, looking forward and wondering what i was going to look like, what my life was going to look like.  Was I going to look like Homer Simpson?  Bumbling through his life, blinking blankly at responsibility, drinking to his way into numbness, doing his best to parent but never quite investing as much as he needed to; not if a show was on.

I wipe the mirror in the morning after my shower and look at the man I see in it.  I used to draw this picture of a man when I was a wain; with a square jaw, a pony tail, steel grey eyes, the look of the world shown in those very eyes.  I thought at first it was of someone else; as i was a lonely, skinny, hatchet-faced kid with little hope.  This man was real, had truly lived, and was strong.

I wonder if I was drawing who I had hoped I would become.  I can’t really say; life was challenging back then, I was just hoping to get out of my town of 1000 people and into the world.  Find people who understood and desired me as I was, not for who I could be to them or what I represented.  Seen as… me.  I finally have that now, if nothing else, with my amazing spouse and partner.

I put on weight, there are definitely more lines on my face, and I do have some annoying aches I didn’t have when I was younger but I truly have no complaints.  In many ways, despite my doubts in myself, I pulled it all off.  So this is 40; this is where a lot of people say that real, true life that is yours begins.  Well that is both sobering, wonderful, and frightening isn’t it?

Cheers to 40; for being not the monster I worried it would be, and for all the things it still stands to be.  Cheers to the man in the mirror, to the voice I know as home now, and the life I have fought so hard to have.  Cheers to all of those who have stuck with me on my crazy ass journeys and cheers to all of those who will continue forward with me.  Thank you all so much!

Love, D.