Reaching the Halfway Point

I was hatched 40 years ago today at Purdre Valley Memorial Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. And today is the statistical halfway point of my life. This eventuality tends to lead one to become brutally nostalgic. And I am no different.

I can clearly remember giving my mother a plaque ("40 is what happens to you just when you've gotten used to 35") on her fortieth birthday. On that day I was just about to turn 14. I can remember how slow time seemed to crawl. Now I look back and wonder where it all went.

Though I am not a fan of the Grateful Dead, I now agree with the statement, "What a long strange trip it's been." Since my mother's birthday back in 1985 I have graduated High School, attempted to join the US Navy (an injury during training derailed that plan), graduated from the Colorado Institute of Art (now the Art Institute of Denver) with a degree in Recording Engineering, worked doing live sound at concerts, did a miserable job at vacuum sales, worked for Packard Bell Computers in Magna, Utah, moved to Martha's Vineyard and got married (16 years in June), was a trashman with BFI, was an assistant manager with Blockbuster Video, when back to school and got my Airframe and Powerplant license at East Coast Aerotech, moved to Maine and worked for American Eagle Airlines, and we bought a house in 2005. In 2007 American Eagle left Bangor, Maine and I found myself with a mortgage to pay and no job. At that point, and out of desperation, I went back to school and got my CDL and hit the road with Stevens Transport. Eventually we weren't making enough to pay the mortgage, and I was gone all the time, so I left Stevens to try to save the house locally.

This didn't work ... and Wells Fargo told us to move out in May of 2009. They still haven't foreclosed and we moved out when they told us to.

So, here I sit on my 40th birthday, I'm living on Cape Cod, with my wife and mother. I am jobless in the winter and work for the Barnstable Harbormaster's office during the summer. I am back in school, and have a position as Production Director at WKKL that college radio station.

This is NOT where I had expected to be at 40. I guess you never can tell where life is going to take you. I'm at the halfway point and am beginning to look at it as a new, if not so fresh, start.