So this is 50... — I'd Like to Bear my Testimony

September 8, 2020. The day I turned 50. The day we watch our parents celebrate while thinking “they are so old, I will never be that old”. Well, here I am. 50. Yep, 50.

Wait, what?!?!? How did that happen?

This week has been one of reflection and introspection. I think that for most of us we see our fiftieth birthday as somewhat of a half-way point. Perhaps we will be lucky enough to live to the age of 100, spend much more time with our partner and see our kids and grandkids grow and become adults themselves. Perhaps we won’t. But either way, whatever the plan is for me, I have taken this week to soak in what is life. I have tried to slow down, taking in the little things, listening for things that I normally don’t. I have tried to make time and room for things I normally don’t.

I have learned many things as I have aged. It is amazing to me how things become a bit more clear. How the importance of certain things become less, and other things more. Things that used to bother me or make me angry, no longer do. I have become more patient, more understanding and more empathetic. I have become wiser, smarter and more analytical. I notice that even though I am still in relatively good shape, my body is changing. Aching in new places and needing a bit more rest than I used to. My workouts that used to shape my body quite nicely don’t seem to be doing the same job that they used to, and that’s OK.

We have had the complete honor of having ALL the kids here in Arizona for the week. This was supposed to have been our family trip to Hawaii which has now been cancelled twice due to COVID 19 (we have rescheduled again for May 2021). To say that I have been humbled this week is an understatement. We are lucky enough to have Lauryn and Ashby living with us 100% of the time, but to have Parker (and his girlfriend Lexi) here just makes everything seem right. I have been watching them together this week. I could literally watch them interact with each other for hours. To say I am a proud father is an understatement. “Pride is not the word I am looking for” (Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda)

We have been watching some old home movies from when I was a baby, which they found quite entertaining. We also broke out the home videos of when they were all young. There was a section of that video that was Fathers Day 2005. The kids had made me a “throne” on the leather chair in the family room, crowning me king for the day. They made me my favorite drink “ice water” and had fashioned me crowns made of pipe cleaner. They gathered around me as we read a book that they and their mother had made about the things the kids liked about me as a father. As I laid there on the couch watching this with the same three grown kids gathered around me again, my heart sang with joy and my eyes wept with gratitude.

I am a blessed man. No doubt.

My life has taken on more stark differences than most, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My marriage to Janna was, for the most part beautiful. We had some amazing years together. We created these three precious humans that I speak of and I am beyond words grateful for that.

My life looks different now, I find myself again married, this time to the person and the sex that I now know is my true self and destiny. The first 45 years of my life looked very different from what has come since then. I am a man with no boundaries, no limits. No longer constrained by a religion that was killing me. No longer fearful of a God that I was being told didn’t like the way I turned out.

I hope when I sit down to write my blog about the second 50 years of my life, I will have much more wisdom to bestow, much more kindness to share and much more gratitude to express.

Until then, CHEERS! Onward and Upward