It’s for you.

This is not the first time I’ve blogged. The first time was called The Phone Rang and it was all about trying to hold on to my marriage as it was ripping apart at the seams seven years ago.

I was rereading it recently and was struck by how profoundly sad I was at the time and how desperately we had struggled to keep our family together.

A lot has changed in the ensuing years (for instance, the profoundly part of sadness has vanished) and some other important things have remained the same, and I thought you might be interested in seeing how it all turned out in the end, on the occasion of my 50th birthday.

(Editor’s note: This is really a not too clever way of saying that I’m too lazy to post something original today because I’m too busy Black Fridaying and going to the movies.)

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Life in L

I never pick up the phone in my house because it’s hardly ever for me, but today is different.

Because today’s my birthday! Friends and family have been calling all morning long, wishing me a happy big five-oh or L, as my younger Roman son pointed out, and I’ve pretty much been telling everyone the same thing — I don’t feel fifty, although I do feel like L.

I don’t know what fifty is supposed to feel like. Or maybe I don’t know is what fifty is supposed to feel like. I don’t know what’s going to happen with my marriage. I don’t know when I’ll have sex again. I don’t know what my next job will be. I don’t know what’s causing those goddamn chest pains. I still don’t know how to be happy. I don’t know much of anything.

I guess this is the typical mid-life crisis bullshit and mine’s right on schedule, although it’s doubtful I have another fifty years to figure it all out. Tell you the truth, I’d settle on figuring out someway not to think about any of it in ten.

What I do know is this: that I’m loved, by my wife and kids, sister and brother and a handful of close friends, and that I’m lucky to have these wonderful people in my life. And there they are now.

The phone’s ringing. GTG.

One Last Thing

I know it’s late, but I needed to tell you one last thing. Caryn gave me fifty birthday presents today, but it was her card that made me cry. Here’s what she wrote on the inside:

Next year we will have been together for half of our lives — pretty remarkable. I don’t want this card to get weird and creepy about the good times and the bad, the ups and downs . . . I just want you to know that I love you with all of my heart and we will always be “thinking the exact same thing” until forever.

That’s it. Good night.