It is my forty ninth Birthday and I have slipped into “life as usual”, that being a life that has few changes or monumental events. I just lived my life, one day at a time and didn’t take any of it too serious.

I ate too much, I might have played too much, I laughed a lot and thought about my own mortality entirely too often. I feel that’s normal when looking at gaining on your last years in the “forties” before the big event of turning fifty. Unlike most who think turning forty as a halfway point, I often think of fifty as my “mid-life crisis” although “crisis” is a bit extreme of a thought for me. Yet I did spend a lot of time pondering my past “fifty” years.

I wondered, did I live a good life up to now, have I given more than I took, have my achievements been worthy of my abilities or could I have done even more? Are those whom I have touched in my life really think of me as making any kind of difference in their lives? Maybe it is just me thinking I have made more of an impact on their lives than I really have? I pondered the choices I have made and the failures too, I think of the person I am and if I could change what would I change?

One thing I know today is I want for nothing, I am ninety percent happy with me as a whole and in these times we live in I think I am doing just alright so far… we’ll see what the next fifty years bring me or perhaps what of any impact I might make on the world around me and those dearest to my heart now and in the future.