Birthday!

[smescrater]

I had one! I had a big one! I turned 40!

And that’s my exclamation mark quotient used for the year I think.

I’ve just returned from Cambridge sunburned and shattered beyond belief. I am shattered but very very happy. I spent my birthday surrounded by partners, close friends and a group of very special and lovely people. What’s better is that I get to do it again in a few weeks time with more friends far and wide as we throw open the doors and welcome everyone to help celebrate again (why stop a good thing?). I’ve had a lovely weekend, and I’ve been more than adequately reminded that I am loved and I am surrounded by simply the greatest bunch of friends a person could hope to have. I am humbled and constantly touched by the warmth, support and love that people choose to furnish upon me.

Forty is meant to be some life begins crisis fuelled moment when I’m supposed to change everything, realise I’ve not acted upon my dreams and try to overcompensate.

To that I say PSHAW!

I’m sat in the attic of the type of house I dreamed of from being very small.

I am in rather rude health and barring the impetus to work on reducing my size, I cannot complain about my overall health in the slightest.

I am not the most intelligent man in the world, but I am capable of working and applying myself and as such have landed a reasonably job that I hope to be in for a very long time to come.

I have simply the most amazing partners in my life. I married a woman who is not only much more intelligent than I am, but who is beautiful and compassionate and more than anything puts up with my shit on a daily basis where others would have killed me and left me in a shallow grave. I have a partner E who again is much more intelligent than I am, and beautiful besides, who I find I spark with in ways I find new and fresh every time we meet. And as much as we may have called it a day, the Lady Misadventurer is still a close friend and supportive and is there for me when I need it or need to be told I’m in the wrong.

I have friends who, as I said, humble me. You are my family, I cannot put it more succinctly than that. I do treasure each and every friendship I have, I might not always be great at articulating and explaining that, deep down though I treasure you all. No one could ask for a better group of people to go through life with.

And what can I say about turning 40? That it’s no different to me turning 30 or even 20. It’s just a milestone through my journey in life. My teens proved to be a tumultuous period, railing against the world and the inequity of it all. My twenties proved to be full of hard lessons painfully learned. My thirties saw me sorting things out, going through the legacy of the past and gradually putting it behind me and dealing with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

What then for my forties? I hesitate to ask for anything, for asking is an act of hubris. I aspire to wisdom. To apply the lessons I’ve learned to myself and to be a more rounded and balanced person for it. Of all the things I would wish for, that would be it. I’d wish too that the decade sees my loved ones get the things they need, and for you all to live long and prosper. I’d like to see that, I’d like to be there to witness it all and be there when you need it. I think that would be an excellent thing indeed.

Thank you one and all for all the warm wishes, support and love you’ve given me today. No one could ask for anything quite so magical.

Thank you.

Mirrored from Tales of the gentleman misadventurer. Please leave comments there thank you!