My last chance

I feel pretty good about myself. I generally don’t deal with chronic aches and pains, I can climb stairs without relying on the handrail, and I can maneuver a small(ish) SUV with ease. I can put a thread through the eye of a needle, and can stick a needle in my arm without difficulty.

Except for the whole insulin-deficiency thing, my body hasn’t really let me down too much.

Well, yeah, there’s the hair-deficiency.

And the long-range-sight-deficiency.

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I’m also somewhat deficient in muscle, but I can’t fault genetic-disposition of that. It’s my own fault and my own lack of motivation that led me down that path. (And, speaking of a path, I can’t go thirty-yards along a jogging path without running out of breath).

But I have a feeling that feeling-good thing is all about to change. I’ve peaked, and it’s downhill from here.

Since I was a child, I always thought I would live to my seventies. I never figured diabetes would allow me to reach my eighties. There’s no scientific basis in this belief, but when I was a pre-teen, I didn’t need science to justify my beliefs. And today, after blindly following a belief for so many years, it’s hard to change that perception. Especially since the perception still may hold true.

So here I am, today, on my thirty-ninth birthday. Halfway to seventy-eight. Am I over-the-hill yet? It’s hard to say.

But this time next year, I’ll be forty. At that point, I’ll most definitely have past the halfway point. Once I reach forty, it’s all downhill. And as we all know, you go much faster rolling down a hill than pedaling up it. There’s also more of a chance that you could crash.

I’m not looking forward to forty.

I figure the next 365 days are my last chance to appreciate what is yet to come. My last chance to climb before I start to slide.

It’s inevitable. Things stop working in the second half of life. More things than in the first half. Eventually, they all stop working.

So I need to enjoy this: my final year of my thirties. I need to try to reach new heights. Reach for my personal and professional aspirations. Maybe do something about that muscle-deficiency.

Otherwise, on March 5, 2014, I just might be celebrating my second 39th birthday.