This is the year we all turn 50. Most of us are throwing big birthday parties. By all and most of us, I mean the crowd I ran with in Jr. High and High School.
My Facebook news feed is flooded with pictures of birthday celebrations and trips of a lifetime. There have been parties to attend. Old friends to visit. And a whirlwind of other activity since December when it all started with our friend Heather.
Here in California, December first is the cut off birthday date to start Kindergarten. Anybody born after December first has to wait until the following school year to enroll.
Heather is a December baby, so she’s always been the first of our crowd to hit the big milestones. The first to get her driver’s license. The first to vote. The first to legally buy alcohol and now the first to hit the big 5-0.
I, on the other hand, will be the last of our group. And I’m feeling a bit guilty. I’m not having a big party (or at least not that I know of) for all my friends to celebrate, though it would have been a nice way to round out the year. Nope, I’m taking my sweetie and myself on a vacation instead. We’re doing the “trip of a lifetime”.
My sweetie turns 50 this month and I hit it in October. So, August is our month. I had originally wanted to take a cruise down the River Rhine as my “trip of a lifetime”, but ISIS has put a damper on my enthusiasm for foreign travel this year.
Instead, we’re going to Boston, the birthplace of America. Which I think is fitting as I’ve been feeling like we, as a people, need to stop and remember what America stands for now more than ever.
