I Liked the Cake

The family will be over soon to have dinner and help me celebrate my birthday. The only ones that are excited about it are Hurricane and Tornado, because for them, birthdays are still a big deal. They count their age in half years and getting one year older opens up different doors for them. Not to mention going up a grade in school for each year. Tornado will start “real” school next year. So exciting!

The passing of years have long ceased to have any excitement for me. A couple of weeks ago I was telling Louise that I don’t feel any different now that I am almost 63. She called me an idiot and said that I am going to be 62. Cool, I’m younger than I thought. My mind is going, but I won’t be as old as I think I am when it goes completely. I get to have one of my favourite meals, Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. There will be potatoes and carrots fresh from the garden and I have it on good authority that a Black Forest cake will be making an appearance. Of course it will be a landmark event.

I can remember when my dad and mom were my age, and just how impossible it was to buy anything for them. I’d ask them what they wanted and I would get “You to be happy” or `There really isn’t anything that I want”. “How can you not want anything?” I would think. You aren’t millionaires, you are on a government pension, and there must be something that you want.

Well, I am now in the same position as they were. There isn’t anything that I want and if it is truly something that I want, I will get it when I want it, not wait until my next birthday. I suppose there are things that I want, but those things are more dreams than real. A mansion in Hawaii and another in England would really tickle my fancy. A bobcat and a few acres of land that I can move back and forth with the bobcat would be pretty cool. I would love to have a cottage on a nice lake in southern Ontario with a nice view of the lake, a rowboat to get out on the water and a nice room to write in. Those are all doable if I can somehow come into a modest fortune in the near future.

The things that really matter can only be given to yourself. I would like to have more confidence in my abilities and wouldn’t it be nice to know that people like you for who you are. It would be awesome if I could set a feasible schedule for myself and have it work out. I could spend more time doing and less time thinking about doing. I suppose I could go on and on and still not get anything done.

Maybe this will be the year. Maybe I will get so involved in life that I will start counting my life by half or even quarter years.

The boys helped me blow out the candles on the cake. For them, that was much more fun than the eating of cake. I liked the cake!