Taylor Remembered

Yes I had a birthday this month. I'm now older. It beats the alternative. If you haven't sent your gift there is still time.

Looking back on life, somethings haven't worked out the way I thought. The dream of working offshore as a banker is gone. In fact, the whole career in finance has been scraped. But I can't say that losing that dream has mattered as much as I once thought. I had other career/success benchmarks that I wanted to reach by the time I reached my last birthday. I've been blessed in some of those, and I've let others go. Letting go proved to be its own kind of blessing.

I've come to the realization that parents telling their kids that "you can be/do anything/everything you want to be", are lying. You can't be everything or anything you think you want to be or do. This is tremendously good news. What we think we want isn't always best nor will it always make us happy.

To rip off a old song "regrets I've had a few". Most of the things I regret turned out to be fundamental learning opportunities. I wish I hadn't learned those things the hard way, but some people only learn in the school of hard knocks. Apparently I'm one of those hardheaded people. Secretly I've always known that about myself.

I remember asking a teacher how old she was, and thinking that anyone that old was ready to keel over and die. Guess how old I am this year? Yep. Still feel almost as young as I did that day. Now I'm officially at the into middle life stage of male development. Some of my friends have traded in the 40 year old wife for 2 twenties and a six pack of Viagra. I don't see any need to make that swap in a vain attempt to reassert my manhood. Who needs Viagra? Besides Mrs Ipsa is going to be 41 this year and that isn't evenly divisible by 2.

Res Jr (RJ) has proven to be a great blessing. While friends are buying sports cars, playing wife swap, and other interesting things, I'm spending my middle years, playing daddy. Tonight I, in a very mature and dignified manner, particularly appropriate for a man of my age and status in life, spent time jumping in mud puddles with my 18 month old son. RJ has shoes that have little red blinking lights that go off when he jumps. These look really cool when combined with the splashing effect enthusiastically produced in a puddle of melted snow. At least he thought so. I did a double take to make sure mom didn't see us, then I laughed too.

God did right by me when He denied me things I thought I wanted. Instead He blessed me above what I imagined according to His time schedule. He is a good God.