4 Decades

It's funny how growing up you hear so much about turning 40. To me age has always been just a number. I never really cares about how old I was but was more concerned with where I was in my life. I was married by 22, and am proud to say that I am still married to the same woman. Given my family history of marriages I may be getting close to a record. All of my grandparents were married at least twice, my mother is on her third marriage and my father just got his fifth divorce. I don't have a family tree, it's a small orchard that BEARS! mostly nuts. But enough about that.

After several years of floating around and trying to decide on a career path, I successfully graduated college with a degree in a profession that will always provide me with work, I'm lucky in that sense.

I have a wonderful, spirited 8 year old who my existence revolves around. We spent 5 years trying to have her and over $45,000 out of pocket (damned insurance companies), she challenges, inspires and grounds me every day (more on the story behind her at a later date).

Back to the purpose of this initial blog, it's so weird to say that, blog, I had to have the whole concept explained to me by someone almost half my age, I guess that this makes me old to some extent, not neccessarily by age, but more by the lack of insight into the world around me. But I can't think of a safer place to vent, brag or just be heard than here.

A week after I turned 40 I quit my job. I began to question the priorities I had in my life. I looked back and realized that I was putting work first, something I think that many men are guilty of. Some of us do it to escape our lives and some of us do it because we believe it is our life, or at least what we are identified by. I know I am guilty of the latter, the first question out of my mouth when I meet someone new is; "What do you do?", maybe it's a defensive mechanism to avoid actually talking to someone about a more meaningful topic or maybe I am such a poor conversationalist that it's the best I can come up with. Anyways back to the job, I quit with out any idea of what I was going to do. I had several weeks of paid time off accrued and figured within a few days I would be set, well that was 8 weeks ago and I just started to do some interviews. The funny thing is that I am interviewing for what I am qualified to do not what I necessarily want to do. That's because I haven't figured out what I want to do but I need to start to bring in some money! I hate that at 40, I have no idea where I am going or what I want to do. It's funny how we go through life at times thinking we have everything under control and then in an instant everything is spinning out of control. What was my instant? The night my daughter said "I know you can't take me to school tomorrow because you have to work". I about died inside, all she wanted was me to walk her to school, not spend the day playing Barbie , My Little Pony or Pretty Princess, no my daughter wanted me to take 5 minutes out of my day to walk her to school and I couldn't because work was waiting for me. I decided that I needed a change, I just haven't figured out what that change is going to be, hopefully I can figure it out soon. I guess there may be something to that turning 40 thing!