32 years ago today, I was born in Vancouver General Hospital, after what I've been told was a long and painful labour. I was in no hurry, apparently. It's good to see some things haven't changed.
Birthdays are funny things.
They're so arbitrary, for one. If you think about it, we're 'always' aging. It's not as if all of a sudden on this one magical day your body gets 365 days' worth of wrinkles or loses 365 days' worth of hair (Curse you, Male Pattern Baldness!).
I think the main purpose of a birthday (aside from presents and cake, obviously) is personal reflection. When we're younger we tend to look ahead (ie. "Only five more years until I can legally drink!", "Only two more years until college!" etc.) but as we grow older the parabola warps and all of a sudden we find ourselves looking back more ("Man, I totally would've hit that if I were ten years younger" or "I once drank 18 beers in one night - if I tried that now, I'd literally die."). By the time you reach the end of the line, almost the entire process is spent looking back - I can't imagine one's 90th birthday is spent looking ahead to the 91st.
I tend to get maudlin as my birthday approaches. I don't handle growing older with particular aplomb, I'll admit that. I've been making jokes as of late regarding how I'm 'so old' and can 'feel the darkness approaching'. Some of that is just bullshit, certainly, but a lot of it was rooted in the very real fear that I'm now firmly entrenched in the middle third of my lifespan. Any illusions I had that I was still a 'young adult' have been thrown right out the window. I have a wife now. Bills, car insurance, I'm saving to buy a condo for cripe's sake. I can't just torch off half my paycheque at the arcade (though sometimes I'd love to). My life is changing ... and I don't handle change particularly well.
What seems like years ago now, I was stuck in a rut the size of the Marianas Trench. I was happy, I guess, but I didn't have much purpose. I was delivering pizzas for a living. Honest work, sure, but I'm pretty sure there's a picture of the Pizza Hut guy on Wikipedia on the page for 'Dead End Jobs'. I needed a jolt from a friend of mine, who told me to leave my McJob, get off my ass and come work with him. I did and because I was fortunate enough to have dominoes fall the right way, I've now got a good job that pays reasonably well, with people I like. Never underestimate the potential value of job satisfaction.
A few weeks ago, I needed another kick in the pants - but the aforementioned friend has now moved halfway across the country (*sob*), so I had to do it myself (Don't ask *how* I managed to kick myself in the ass - I'm fairly certain I pulled something and I don't want to talk about it). I had ballooned a bit and weighed more than I had ever weighed before, I loped around the apartment like a three-toed sloth, I was grumpy and almost completely inactive. The closest I came to exercise was picking my SixAxis controller off the entertainment center. I wasn't happy. So I decided to make a change. I promptly (and without warning - so much so that I shocked my wife when I announced it) cut out soda and fast food and started playing basketball again. My thought process was thus: My main issue with 'exercise' was that it too often felt like work. Why would I want to do that on my time off? But if you're playing a sport (like basketball, say, or tennis), you're getting exercise, it's fun, plus you can bet on all sorts of different things (Everything Is More Fun When You Gamble). So far the results have been both obvious (I'm a little slimmer and have more energy) and *not* so obvious (I have more money in my pocket - seriously, who knew I was spending so much on Coca-Cola?). Originally, I thought it might mark the onset of an early-midlife crisis, this weird obsession to pick up a basketball again. In truth, however, my birthday was used as a rallying point. I wanted to do some maintenance before the calendar rolled over. Like a New Year's Resolution, but hopefully not with the same outcome (abandoned by February - or in my case, September).
I think it's safe to say that my life at 32 isn't what I envisioned it to be when I was twenty or even twenty-five. That's not to say that's a bad thing. I have a decent job, a wife, a novel on-the-go, two cats and a savings account (with money in it and everything!).
32 is a tough number to get a handle on. It's divisible by four, which is notoriously bad luck in Chinese culture, but it's also divisible by eight, which is tremendously *good* luck in that same culture. It's an even number, but since it doesn't have a '0' on the end, it somehow feels less milestone-y (is that a word? Well it is now.).
They say you're only as old as you feel. Well, today I feel 32. And I guess I'm all right with that.
What I'm Reading: Batman - Hush
What I'm Playing: Infamous 2 for PS3
