"Always? Really? No, I think only the last 3 or 4 years maybe, you know the whole turning 40 thi..."
"Always. Meaning that around this time for the last 14 years of the 15 I've known you, you get this way. Knock it off, you're doing great."
Boom. Just like that I felt a corner of my brain clear of cobwebs and I remembered how often I've spoken to others about the pitfalls of complacency, that negativity is sometimes nothing more than a bad habit stuck on repeat. Suddenly I was looking a little more forward to my birthday.
I was already looking forward to it in the sense that we were planning to take our kids to an R5 concert earlier that week, but due to a conflict in schedules our last chance for tickets was going to be on the 28th at a fair in New Jersey. We decided to keep it a surprise from them for as long as we could, so for my birthday this year my big gift would be to see their amazed little faces when they realized what was happening, and I was really excited about that. By the way if you're wondering "What's an R5?" then I know you don't have to watch the Disney channel much and/or your kids are in their later teens. They are the music group our kids are currently very fond of and whose young front man, Ross Lynch, is also the teen heart throb our nine-year-old has just recently chosen as the subject for poster hangings on her wall. They were elated to discover that the enormous line whose end we could not seem to reach to enter the venue was for an R5 concert, and not even the rain that had just then started to fall dampened their spirits. Did I mention it was an outdoor venue? It was an outdoor venue and it had just then begun to rain. I then realized I would probably have to carry our five-year-old on my shoulders for the whole concert because I don't think he'd be able to see past the mass of hysterically screaming teenage girls. I got a kick out of looking around at the spectrum of parenting on display though; you had the parents that had scowls on their faces and stood perfectly still as if thinking "I paid how much to stand next to screaming females? I can get this at home for free, goddamit.." You had the parents that from the corner of your eye you thought were just more teenagers waving their arms, dancing and singing along unabashedly. But you gasped a little when you turned to see them and.. oh my God, that teenager needed either emergency Botox treatments or a full-on facelift, oh no wait....you're a parent too. An exceedingly enthusiastic parent probably embarrassing the living crap out of their kids, but a parent nevertheless. And there were parents like my wife and I, all smiles and happy because we were making a vivid memory with our kids. We were able to give them something they not only loved but had earned and were very appreciative of. So there we were, the four of us enjoying music my wife and I were actually familiar with and that our kids sang along to with so much joy and happiness, in our rain ponchos, on my birthday. I loved every minute of it, and the rain didn't even bother me.
That is until a few hours later. While waiting on line for one of the fair rides, we were suddenly caught in a torrential downpour that had us running for the nearest tent already overcrowded with soaking wet human beings. only my front side was not getting wetter, the entire back half of me was already thoroughly soaked through. The ground was having a hard time assimilating the enormous amount of water falling from the sky, and within minutes muddy water had already reached the top of my sneaker laces. Figuring we couldn't actually get any wetter than we already were, we made our way to our car through ankle deep, freezing brown water and a deluge that just wouldn't stop. No, the smiles were pretty much gone by the time we were sitting in our sopping wet clothes and transferring some of that water to the car seats, but you know something? We had a great time, it was worth every drop, and I decided that the rain would be the figurative exclamation point to my answer if anyone ever asked me which has been my favorite birthday so far.
It was my 43rd!
