Good Evening
It's Friday night in my corner of HIVE. It's been dark for a couple hours or so, and I'm feeling like I should already be in bed. Still, it's a bit early for that (7:30 PM) and I'm not really sleepy anyway, so here I am, reaching across the Ethersphere to anyone who might be out there, and starting a conversation of sorts.
How's it going? You doing okay?
Me, I'm okay. Could definitely be better. Certainly could be worse.
I've been sharing my situation quite a bit lately, so I don't really need to turn this post into one of those. Especially on a Friday night.
For most of us I imagine, the work week is over (perhaps well over), and so no doubt the mind has already drifted to what will be happening over the weekend.
Mine has, sort of.
Back When I Had Hair...
My wife, looking like a member of an 80s girls' band, and me, hamming it up in an itchy sweater. The setting is a restaurant, somewhere like Laguna Niguel, for a Christmas office party, December, 1988. The beer is not mine.
Yesterday, my wife and I had a wedding anniversary. Number 32. Yep, 32 years and still going. No, it doesn't feel like just yesterday we were this or that. Okay, in some ways it does. In others, the full weight of the years are definitely upon me and continually being felt.
I was going to write about it, but much like last year, it was a non-event. That's what happens when one or both of you have to work. We do intend to do something tomorrow. Probably a dinner of some sort.
Maybe get our eye prescriptions filled at Costco.
I know, I know.
It doesn't get much more romantic than that, eh?
Try not to be too jealous.
Down The Road A Ways
Thinking about the years that have flown by brings me to a different topic, which I want to insert here.
I've seen it noised around that age isn't an indicator of anything special. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, other than you've managed to make it so far. I kind of chuckle at it when it's someone younger than me, considerably younger, saying it.
Just wait, Sonny! See how you feel when you're my age, you whippersnapper. Now get off my lawn!
I understand what is meant. Age doesn't necessarily mean you've gained wisdom, or know a lot more, or that you're any better a human being than you were when you were younger. The opposite could definitely be true in all those categories. We could probably all name some folks that are older than us who either never grew up, or haven't really amounted to much.
That doesn't mean age doesn't count for anything at all, though.
Perhaps the better argument would be age doesn't always mean something, but experience does. And inevitably, unless you're living really fast and real hard, it takes time to gather experience. It's hard to see it all before your 30.
I know. I tried. Sort of.
I turned 30 in June of 1996. By the, I'd been married for seven years, was already a father twice over. I was working for the state's welfare department, called Adult and Family Services, and while there was some good, definitely, in my life, I wasn't exactly happy.
It was pretty stressful, really. While I couldn't imagine what else I would have done with my life, maybe I'd gotten married and started the family too early. Maybe I should have gone back to college, finished up a degree, found something I actually liked to do rather than what I was doing.
But the plan had been, for as long as I can remember, after the two year church mission, which itself came after high school and a year at BYU, was to get married and start the family.
The reasoning? By the time I was my age now, our sons would be out of the house, married, with children of their own, and my wife and I could settle into we time and respective me time. As I imagined it in my head, it would be great.
The reality of it? Well middle age isn't horrible, but it's not nearly the blissful contentment I figured it to be.
This Part Of The Plan Is Working Wonderfully...Even With Less Hair
The family so far: From left to right—Grandma, granddaughter (first grandchild), youngest son's wife, youngest son, their newborn son (third grandchild), Moi, oldest son holding his son (grandchild No. 2 and first grandson), his wife.
And that's largely because of the career path choices I've made, or lack thereof. I didn't ever go back and finish the communications degree I started, though I did get a degree in Social Media Marketing almost five years ago, and was able to use a couple of those 30 year old credits just lying around collecting dust and moss.
I've always looked at work or a career as a means to an end, and something I wanted to spend the least amount of time in possible. Working 40 or more hours a week for someone else just to make ends meet isn't my idea of a good time. Working 12 hours a week, more or less, and paying myself more than enough to take care of bills, buy stuff, go on trips, etc., was awesome, for the time that it lasted.
The next step in that process was to get to 0 hours a week. Work if I wanted to. Don't work if I didn't. But if I worked, do something I enjoyed and wanted to do, and not be dependent on it for survival.
Well, that process got derailed eight years ago and counting , and I've been floundering around ever since. After 25 years of working the plan, the plan backfired. More like someone through a monkey wrench into it, but whatever.
Enough of that. I said this wasn't going to be a post about my current circumstances, and so I'll discontinue that for now.
So Much For A Conversation
Okay, it's a conversation. Very one sided and very much about me, but it's still happening.
Feel free to jump in at any time. I'd love to hear about what you think of any of the bazillion topics I've probably raised so far.
Circling Back. Sort Of
Some more reminiscing. My iPhone has become fond of late presenting me with memories. Basically all it is are pictures I've taken some time ago, which in some cases don't even amount to much.
This one just happened to be images of where my wife and I were seven years ago when we actually did something for our anniversary.
We went to Oahu for the first time.
I'd always wanted to go to Hawaii. There's something about a tropical island that calls to me. The warmth. The water. The breeze. The palm trees and ferns. The food. The people. Okay, not the tourists. The people who live there.
When In Hawaii...
Pop Quiz—Of the two of us, who do you think is the more adventurous when it comes to trying new food, me or my wife? The food on the right is the fish taco my wife got in Hawaii, while mine is loco moco, a Hawaiian favorite. You be the judge.
We had no idea what we were doing, where to go, what to do, but we still managed to see a few things and have a good time. We were able to orient ourselves enough the first time around that when we went back with our sons and their wives in 2016, and then by ourselves again in 2017, we got to see a whole lot more.
Barefoot In The Sand
My wife rocking the sunglasses on a morning walk down the beach.
It made me remember other places we've gone.
Three years before we went to Oahu, we were in Cancun. My wife is from Mexico, but she had never been. For me, it was my second time. I'd gone with a friend from work and we went to check out the ruins on that side of the country while my wife and boys stayed with family near Mexico City.
That was a great experience both times. Discovering it for ourselves with my friend, and then acting like a seasoned tour guide with my wife.
Room With A View
From the balcony of our hotel room, the last night of our stay in Honolulu when it finally occurred to me to snap the picture.
The hotel we stayed in the first trip to Oahu was nice, but nothing we hadn't really been in before. Except it was Hawaii, with an ocean marina right out our window. And a hurricane nearby that didn't hit but still made the weather inhospitable for half a day.
Another Place, Another View
One of the pool areas on the oceanside of La Amada, Cancun.
The hotel we stayed in at Cancun (La Amada) was only a few years old at most then, luxurious, discounted, and the best accommodations ever, bar none. If we ever get into another place like that on a vacation, we will be extremely fortunate. It will have to be something to beat the memory of it. I'm not even sure going back there now would fully measure up.
That was a good trip.
All Good Things
Well, I'm certainly not saying the good times are over. I don't think they are. Even if I'm very concerned with the state of the world and specifically the United States and Oregon. It's feeling like the fun in life is be sucked right out of it.
Yet, I'm hopeful that things will get better. I don't know how, I don't know when, but sitting around moping about it, or complaining, or blaming situations or others for how I've stressed or suffered or whatever because of it all—I don't know.
It gets old.
Better to move forward, learn from the past, remember the best parts, and continue to make new memories.
Maybe do a better job of taking pictures.
Put down that dang phone and actually experience the moment, will ya!
Is it time for bed yet? What?!? 11 PM already?!
Time flies when you're...doing pretty much anything.
Better finish this up or I'll have to rename this post.
All images courtesy of Glen Anthony Albrethsen