What do you think about on your birthday?

I’m forty-four today. I don’t celebrate my birthdays, not because I’m ‘dry’ — as my wife likes to scold me — but because celebrating and partying is just not who I am. I’m life-loving, in a quiet way. I profoundly appreciate my existence in this world.

The last fifteen years so have flown by fast. My oldest son is now in college.

Not celebrating my birthday also means that I am not emotional or sentimental about it.

Or am I?

Maybe. Just a little.

The first twenty years and my early twenties were easy, all light. Flying high.

The next ten were intense. Marrying young, building a family, and the first painful stumbles in my career.

My thirties were Okay. More painful stumbles. Scars, actually.

My forties. Hmm. More scars.

Never the one to express self-pity, I have to admit — two decades ago I couldn’t imagine some of the struggles I’d go through.

My marriage — not cloudless, even though I’ve been together with my wife for almost twenty-five years. We experienced true love but we’ve also been through pain. We hurt each other. We’re one but we’re not the same as U2 put in their best song.