Today I turned eighty.
I am sitting upright in bed at Pillars, in pain, fresh from ankle surgery, with my leg wrapped and connected to a little machine quietly pulling fluid away.
My toes are still numb from the nerve block. I keep knocking things off the table. Everything seems just a little harder than it should be.
And I am writing.
This is a hell of a way to turn eighty.
Last night, less than five hours before my birthday, I realized I was living through the final evening of my seventies. My new Pixel was finally working. Medical equipment was humming beside me. My wheelchair sat nearby. There were homemade cookies on the table.
Life had somehow placed pain, machinery, kindness, family, technology, and a birthday all in one small room.
This morning hurts.
I am not writing this because I have a lesson neatly tied up and ready to hand out. I am writing because there may be someone out there sitting alone, hurting, frightened, aging, recovering, or wondering whether they still matter.
You do.
I do too.
Eighty did not arrive the way I pictured it. It arrived in a nursing bed after surgery, with things falling off my table and pain reminding me that I am still very much alive.
So I am here.
Still writing.
Still building things.
Still looking forward.
Still believing there is more.
Happy birthday to me.
Let’s see what eighty has left.
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