Turning 31

A person taking stock in middle age is like an artist or composer looking at an unfinished work; but whereas the composer and painter can erase some of their past efforts, we cannot.  We are stuck with what we have lived through.  The trick is to finish it with a sense of design and a flourish rather than to patch up the holes or merely to add new patches to it.  ~Harry S. Broudy

I know I am not quite to middle age but it can still apply.  I am 31 today.  I think it feels worse than 30.  Thirty was a marker.  But thirty-one just feels....lame and older.  I still live at home, though it is not by choice I know, but still, I live at home and I'm 31.  When I was 23 I really felt like my life had started because I had really moved out.  I had moved to New York City.  By myself.  I was really responsible for myself and my life then.  And then I had to come home for a break at age 26 when I was a little messed up about my life and my accident happened.  My accident happened and halted everything.  Almost making everything go backwards.  I was injured severely, almost died, and back at home being taken care of.  And now, just a couple months shy of five years later, I am still at home going through surgeries and recovery.  I have a love/hate relationship with my life when I look back and take stock of it.  I love some of the things I have done and been brave with and I also hate some of the stupid things I did.  But maybe I don't believe in mistakes anymore.  Because mistakes make us who we are.  I can't erase anything I've done in my past.  But I can enjoy the memories of the good times and learn from the bad.  And what I can do is work on finishing with a design or flourish instead of patching up holes or adding patches as Harry Broudy said.  I may still live at home and going through surgeries and recovery but I don't see why I can't start now.  There is only excuses to wait.

I have been hung up on the past these last five years since the accident.  What was, what I was able to do, what I used to look like, what I used to do, who I used to be.  But I promised myself this year that I was going to move forward and stop all that.  Some of it can be used in a constructive way if done so properly, which is like walking a fine line between using it constructively to move forward and getting deeply depressed.  But I agree so strongly with Soren Kierkegaard when he said, "Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards."  There is so much we can learn and understand from our pasts but it is not to be lived in, only reflected upon to make us better people and then we must continue forward.  We must move forward aiming to finish with a sense of design or flourish.  We can't change our pasts.  But we can do something about our present and future.

I am 31 today.  Happy birthday to me.  I have a bit of a new wish in mind this year for when I blow out my candles.  Nope, can't tell you.  Or it won't come true ;)