I'm 40 ...

I'm 40 today.  I'm forty f#@%ing years old. When your work is mostly with people that haven't yet hit 30 this feels quite old. Over the last year, it has been said to me on numerous occasions, "Well, when you're a middle aged person ..." as well as zingers like, "Shouldn't the Young Adult Missioner actually be a young adult?" Yep, that one felt good. Real good.

Be assured, I write this with a smile on my face. I'm pretty thick-skinned. But I'd be lying if I didn't confess that my poor family has had to deal with a little sulking all week long. Some of it was simply denial. Everyone has a perfect age. My lovely wife will always be 29. But me? I'm really an old man at heart. 40 kinda feels like the beginning of becoming the old fart I was always meant to be.

Enough of feeling sorry for myself! For some reason, I woke up this morning (at 4 a.m. like all old men do), went for a run and realized that I was totally free from the funk I had been in. It felt a little like New Year's Day. I had started the week a little disappointed that I was leaving my thirties behind not having accomplished all I wanted to. But this morning I woke up done with that, realizing there's no time to waste worrying about what's left undone. There's lots still to do. Now I can stop worrying about whether or not someone else approves, or whether it's cool, or whether anyone else likes it. Because I'm forty f#@%ing years old and I'll do what I like (and get off my lawn, dammit!)! I want to make more art, play music again, travel more, get more ink, write more, help more churches thrive and start a few projects I've just been too scared to (Notice how I didn't say what those are? Still scared.).

So, here's to the next decade! May I kick it's ass.