In
a week from now I'll have lived a half-century.
Turning 50 is something people do all the time, and never without some
trepidation or at least reflection. What
surprises me, though, is just how calm I feel about it. Guess I've been anticipating the moment for
the past year if not more, so it's actually a bit anticlimactic.
Or
is it? Am I just saying that to calm
myself down?
In
the greater scheme of things, what makes my 50th birthday momentous must be the
fact that I wasn't always expected to live to my teens. In the dark ages when I was born, doctors
didn't know what to make of my sluggish infantile development. I failed to sit. I was a floppy baby. Many diagnoses were pinned on me by way of
explanation. Perhaps chief among the accomplishments
I would never attain: adulthood.
In
memory, my parents never believed that stuff.
They held to what must have been a romantic ideal--that I would grow up
and, moreover, could become anything I wanted.
And fortunately, I didn't want to become anything I couldn't. I knew I wasn't going to be an athlete, for
instance, and when MDA--in that early-1970s telethon ad I've done my best to
make famous (or infamous, really)--declared
that I wanted to be a fireman "if" I grew up, I balked at the
absurdity of it! I wanted to be a
scientist, a detective, maybe a starship captain. I had bigger fantasies! And yes, I saw myself as more brain than
braun.
Which
is not to say that I didn't have fantasies of physicality, too. In fact, I frequently imagined chasing after
bad guys--running and jumping and fighting like my heroes on TV. It was just that I saw these uncharacteristic
activities as add-ons, a vague sense of unrealized potential, but not as regular
or likely scenarios in my future.
After
all, though Capt. Kirk was more than capable of kicking ass, that wasn't why he
was captain, really, was it? He was
captain because he knew how to be in charge, knew how to think outside the box. He was smart and daring. Had leadership qualities … which my teachers
said I possessed as well.
And
so I went on expecting whatever my version of a normal life was. I boldly went to Harvard. I boldly fell in love and my girlfriend and moved
across country. I boldly looked for work
and, failing, boldly tried to publish novels.
Got married to that girlfriend, too.
I
gave up the dream of ever being dubbed a wunderkind when I turned 30. Three years later I became a father, a
miracle that was repeated three years after that. By and by I found occasional work as a writer. In time, technology caught up with me. Thanks to the Internet and voice-recognition
computers, I was able to write more, more quickly than ever before, and do
independent online research, submitting my writing without needing others to
deliver it.
Disability
rights kept up with me, too. It gave me
a community, a sense of history, and a new subject to write about.
Still,
there have been many times over the past 50 years when I doubted I would make
it to this landmark. Bad asthma and
bronchitis have periodically undermined my optimism. Occasional hospitalizations--especially the
series of unfortunate events that took up most of late-2007 and 2008--brought
me closer to that "undiscovered country" than I'd like to be ever
again. Yet somehow I'm still here,
despite occasionally wondering how much longer.
Are
there still things to do? Of course!
Besides
the personal goals of seeing my children grow up and so forth, I held in my
heart for many years the dream of publishing a book. A real book, distributed by a real
publisher. Three months ago, that dream
became a reality.
I'm
still not quite believing it's true, still in the midst of trying to promote
that book, still incredibly emotionally fragile over its rises and falls in the
Amazon rankings and elsewhere. If I get
a good review, even in some obscure Web site, I feel complete as a person. If there's a lull and the book seems likely
to die of neglect, I die a little inside, too.
I'm like the high school nerd waiting breathlessly for a smile from the
popular blonde cheerleader.
So
here I am, nearly 50, maturing but with definite strains of immaturity. And for those of you keeping track, yes, my
birthday this year falls on Thanksgiving--as it did when I was born. It happens that way every few years.
This
time, however, I meet my birthday with many of my life's dreams achieved and
nothing to look back on with regret. My
only real fear now is, what will be my next set of dreams, goals,
disappointments, and accomplishments? Because
turning 50 shouldn't be just an endpoint; it should also mark a new beginning. Yes? You think?
I'm
game!