NASHVILLE, WE HAVE A PLAN
“Things happen. The only thing that matters is how we deal with the now. Either we face the difficult moral decisions with ever-stronger responses, or we do not. This is what separates the mensch from the asshole. Full stop.”― All the Old Knives: A Novel
“It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.”
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Today I turn 55 years old. I’m not sure what that means, other than in the words of Bob Seager, “I’m a little bit older and a lot less bolder than I used to be.”
My kids awake and begin their daily routines. Watching them – they are now 10 and 11- I can’t help but try to remember what I thought 55 would look like at their age, and for the life of me, I can’t pull up any real memories. 55 is old enough to have lived some shit, but not too old to have run out of possibilities. At 55, Pablo Picasso completed his masterpiece, “Guernica.”. Mao Zedong was 56 when he founded the People’s Republic of China.
At 55, Richard Daniel Bass reached the summit of Mount Everest, and Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic cell. Ella T. Grasso became the first woman to become an American governor on her own, not as the wife of a previous incumbent. At 56, Doug Hughes self-published the world’s longest Christmas newsletter (a 160-page, perfect-bound, full-color paperback book), so maybe if I start next week…
I guess the point is, I never pictured being this age – my wife says that’s a stupid thing to say – but now that I’m here, it ain’t bad. I’m about as financially secure as I was at 18, but I’m also a little healthier due to having left my vices behind decades ago. So I guess it’s a fair trade-off. I’ve got a wife and two kids that serve as blessings greater than I deserve. The biggest gift of being this age is the ability to know that things will always work out and get better. I don’t have to rely solely on faith anymore because…well I’ve repeatedly witnessed the cycle of life and have lived to attest that good times always follow the bad.
While I’ve witnessed the incredible cruelty that people are capable of, I’ve also experienced the CONTINUE READING:
NASHVILLE, WE HAVE A PLAN – Dad Gone Wild
