TURNING

George Carlin on age:
(I highlighted a relevant secion)

And then the greatest day of your life... you become 21.

Even the words sound like a ceremony... YOU BECOME 21... YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40.

Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50... and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

There was a sort of bittersweet, sad tradition I sort of developed about 4 or 5 years ago. At some point during the day of my birth, I'd find a quiet spot and play the song Birthday Boy by Chicago. It's sort of a sad song that I guess (20/20 hindsight) made me feel like I was being all pensive when I was in reality indulging in a good dose of self-pity.

This year, however, feels different. For all the good and bad times in the past couple of years, some really good things have happened -- some as recently as last week!

So, I've decided that starting this year, I'm going to start listening to something else on my birthday. It's a tie. I can't decide between the song My Thanksgiving by Don Henley (I've posted a link to the lyrics some time back) and the song The Show Must Go On by Chicago, the song I've sort of adopted as my personal theme song over the past year or so. (Sorry, I can't really find a link to any accurate lyrics anywhere).

And, here I have about an hour to decide...