The Day Has Come

The beginning of my 41st year has started and its pretty interesting that I didn't feel much of a change at all.  There were several times today that I caught myself quickly thinking that I now tell people that I'm 40, but it really didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.  But I sit back and think about everything that has happened already this year, I have to say, it really has been incredible.  I something think that's an overused word, but I feel its fitting in this case.  

I've developed, with some very meaningful thought, a new appreciation for what I think will be pretty close to being the second half of my life.  I know that I understand so much more now and I have the ability to at least try to pass some of that on to my children.  They're especially going to like the trait I gift them of very high, afro-like, hair that most men my age covet.  For me its a blessing as instead of getting older with more distinguished graying hair, I just keep getting taller as it grows out.  

But this day, in retrospect, has made me ponder some of the great people I have in my life and how much I appreciate the influence they have had on me.  I truly am so fortunate to have been blessed with some of the most amazing people I know be my friends for decades.  I even asked said friends to remember some of the most compelling and profound times they had about me and what specific memory sticks out the most to them.  Here's a small sample:

• "By far, when you were in that break dancing class when you were 12."
• "You locked in the bathroom for the entire plane flight home after church street station"
• "Chubby skimboarder when you were 10."

There are actually some more graphic one's that I'll save for the book project but in all they are very telling and, at times, more meaningful than the above notes.  

With that, I digress; I start to come to the realization that Forty is an octagonal number, and as the sum of the first four pentagonal numbers, it is a pentagonal pyramidal number. Adding up some subsets of its divisors (e.g., 1, 4, 5, 10 and 20) gives 40, hence 40 is a semiperfect number. (Note: stolen from Wikipedia, I'm not that smart.)

I'm happy I'm 40 and happy that some people might actually take me seriously from here on out.  At least my graying and rising hair will give them something more to think about than "who is that old, chubby guy trying to skimboard."  Some things don't change.   

Motivation Is Not Enough

This past week I interviewed my most recent subject for Daddy's Desperate Attempt.  Doug Berlin, a 44 year old entrepreneur that has held two jobs his entire life.  His first, selling insurance.  His second and current, owner of a $10MM, three location enterprise that employs dozens of people and allows him the outlet to pursue one other passion.

He's a self diagnosed OCD sufferer that cant sit still, not even for his son's lacrosse practices/games; he's the coach.  Formerly a gym rat (his words, not mine) he found himself surrounded by people looking to lift heavy things, go out to binge drink and end the evening with some adult entertainment.  He played rugby in college but never ran any distance before because in rugby you typically run into the person in front of you and then run to the bar afterwards.  On a whim, he told his wife that he was going out to run one day.  So when he came home from that first 5 mile distance run, he decided he needed to actually by running shoes.

Flash forward 4 years, yes, only 4 years, and he's run marathons, 50 milers and 100 mile races.  He went from the level of aerobic activity of a tree to finishing his first marathon in 3:15.  Most people train their whole lives to  be able to run under 4 hours.  But really!!!  100 miles after only running for 4 years.  Doug vaguely discussed with me that during his most recent 100 miles, 22 hours, that he had a sprained ankle for the last 40 miles.  He's not proud, he's not gregarious or looking for notoriety.  Doug is searching for sufferance.

Motivation will only take you so far.  "Motivate yourself to get out of bed."  That's nothing.  What about motivating yourself to become the oldest person to be accepted into the Army's Special Forces?  That's Doug and the process he is going through now where he literally needs an act of Congress to get him the age waiver he needs to be accepted.  Its not enough that he's monetarily successful, has a wonderful and supportive wife, 4 children who love and adore him dearly and he's the biggest exercise stud you'll probably ever meet.  His motivation, or whatever you call it, goes to the point where he needs to drop all of that to serve our country and foster what seems to be some of the most compelling God given gifts a man can receive.

Doug seems to have a lot to do in our world.  His expense, his suffering, his fatigue, his motivation, his desire, his goal, his dream, his understanding of normal is so clear to him that it gives him the ability to go beyond motivation.  Motivation is working REALLY hard to do something you may or may not want to accomplish.  But Doug has paved a path for himself that essentially says, "I choose not to just work hard, but to go so far beyond my limits that I can find my soul, stare it in the face and decide how I am truly to live out my time on earth."

Liberating is probably an understatement for Doug.

The Gift of Plimpton

My cousin just sent me a video of George Plimpton and how he went about being one of the world's most esteemed reporters by actually participating in what he was writing about.  You may remember him for his cameo as the psychiatrist in Good Will Hunting.  

Plimpton would box a pro fighter, tame a lion, jump out of planes, and pitch to pro baseball players, all to get a story.  He needed first hand knowledge of an experience in order to truly understand how it feels to be that person.  However, when I told my cousin that I wanted to be Plimpton, he wrote back and said, "Dave, you are him."  I guess I am; in a much simpler way.  I'm desperately trying to find something this year and taking the time to write it down so when my children learn how to read, they'll understand what it was like for their father to turn 40.  I don't really feel like I have anything to prove but the more stuff I do, the more I seem to find out about myself.

May and Cowboy, when its time to read this, please understand that your Daddy is a little crazy.  Not in the clinical sort of way (self-diagnosed,) but in the socially unaccepted sort of way.  You already know what you're going to get when you follow someone, but when you have an original idea, an atypical thought, a path that is not easily traveled, the perception is that you're crazy.  Its super easy to go about your days and have a scoop of vanilla.  But will you ever know what its like to rent an old gas station and create your own flavors from scratch?

This past weekend, my wife and mother, with a lot of help from my closest friends, through me a surprise 40th birthday party in the middle of Central Park in NY.  I walked into a room crowded by love and was able to retrace my life from the day I was born.  Family and friends from every stage of my life, all in one room, celebrating my four decades.  I didn't have to run far or travel for hours to know that I had been molded to the person I am by the people that stood before me.  I had been loved by each soul and cared for by the absolute best people I have ever known.  It wasn't an accident that after 40 years I was able to stand in front of this group of people and realize that I didn't need much else.  I just wanted to be with them and hopefully we could smile and laugh as much as we normally do.

So May and Cowboy, even though it wasn't even my birthday yet, I knew that my presents had come to me over the previous 40 years.  Each time I met a new friend, spent time with a relative and had a chance to listen and explore their lives, my gifts became eternal.  I'm happy that I'm turning 40 and I'm happier that you both are my two sweetest gifts I have ever been given.

It Happened!

Day 5 of 8...still smiling

This time last week I was reveling in the fact that my daughter had just completed her first day of pre-k.  I used to laugh at "Those People" that had to tell everyone a play-by-play on their children's daily occurrences, but I couldn't contain myself on how cool it was that she was now excited to be going to classes everyday.

But what was really interesting to me is that the day before her first day of school, I was wearing shorts that I wore every day for the previous 10 days, hadn't showered in the same amount of days, nor shaved, and just happened to be in eastern Africa; Tanzania.  I couldn't help but start to realize that just 24 hours from one of the most important days of my parental experience, I was in a country where the average age of mortality is 51.  I knew that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the week before her school, was risking the chance to see her off on her first day and the dichotomy of worlds that I found myself was truly mesmerizing.

Kili was everything I that I never imagined.  I never imagined that walking an average of 5 miles a day would be so difficult.  I never imagined that walking, literally, a foot's length stride at a time would be difficult.  I never imagined that being with 5 of my best friends for 10 straight days would make you feel like you were twelve again; but I feel that way every time I'm with them anyway.  But I most of all never thought that even after all these years of knowing each other, after the unbelievable life experiences we have shared, after 3 years of detailed, military precision-like logistical planning for this once-in-a-lifetime, epic adventure, we would still only have three topics to discuss during the hours of getting to the top of Africa; farting, pooping and farting.

I was with some of the most well traveled people that I know.  We have experienced some of the world's most interesting aspects of life and the mere fact that our basic "needs" were the center of attention garnered some of the most interesting conversations I have ever had.  Its amazing to know that when your day's goal is to safely ascend the highest mountain on a continent and support the efforts to get to that summit, you begin to realize that most of the other BS that we focus on in a given day is immaterial and irrelevant.  I/we were most concerned with eating, or not eating, the right foods, taking the right medicine, wearing the right clothes (for practical purposes) and for getting enough sleep; all in the name of the rear end bodily function.  Putting yourself in compromising positions, even in front of your best friends, makes for very uncomfortable hiking, tent sleeping, group discussions, enclosed area meetings, open area meetings, and everything in between.

It was really hard to believe that such a short time ago, I accomplished one of the main events of my 40th year's schedule and the main outcome of our discussions was that I didn't even use an entire roll of toilet paper.  I should have used (insert one of my best friend's name here) advice who used three rolls.

Happy to be home and yes, I do now bow to the thrown.

When Do You Become an Adult?

Turning forty, as many of us have realized, has been a time of reflection on how much of an adult you have become.  Many of us own a home, negotiate the purchase of our own cars, decide on where to vacation, where to eat, how the bills get paid and maybe even become a parent.  Its interesting to finally understand that for roughly half of our lives, someone else, typically a parent, made the majority of our decisions for us.  Its only been roughly 20 years since we've had full reign of our destiny on a daily basis.  For those that have been to their 20+ year high school reunion, we know that those decades have passed faster than we ever thought possible.

But does the age of majority truly start at 18?  This past week, for me at least, I found out that being an adult starts at 39.  For me, I have found that I am truly an adult with the passing of my father about a week ago.  I am no longer able to have a chance to ask for advice and I am unable to have a living historian of my life a phone call away.  Not that he ever really played those roles for me, but having the comfort of knowing that I could at least ask someone some questions, some deep-rooted and meaningful questions, gave me a little comfort, because I was so young then; just one week ago.  I understand now that I was truly a child, someone's child.  I can understand that I no longer have the privilege of falling under the auspices of an older generation.  Even though I am extremely close to my mother, we speak daily (inset your umbilical cord comments here) I now feel that I am THE generation.

I became an adult this week...Three months before my 40th birthday.  I wish I could have stayed a child for a lot longer.

What Are Those Two Circles?

After almost a week in the NC mountains, living without air conditioning (because you don't need it,) sleeping without medication (because you don't need it,) and eating whatever is in front of you (because...,) I started to see how my children perceive summer vacation.  It became blatantly apparent to me that summer is truly the culmination of the entire year.  I'm not sure why God put summer in the middle of year so we just get confused as to when the year actually starts and ends.  If He just made the hot/fun months from October - December, then we could start the year in January with school and work until the beginning of "Summer" at the end of September.  Summer would run its course for the remainder of the year and then January rolls around again for school.

But noooooooooo.  Mittendrinen (please Google for my gentile friends), we have to have summer right in the middle of everything.  This just shows that Julius Cesar was as vain as they come; naming the most fun month, July, after himself and putting it at a time of the year where everyone is looking forward to saying his name all time.  "Let's wait until July to go on vacation, I can't wait until July so I don't have to be in school, lets not pay the electric bill until July" (maybe not that one.)  But you get the picture.

All kids do is look forward to the summer!!!  I was/am one of those kids.  I loved that July brought me the time to go on a hike with family.  I loved that we were forced to talk to each other and sing songs with each other.  I loved that we can stay up late and tell stories to each other.  In actuality, I thank Julius, and God, for giving me the summer in order to remind me how important it is to just BE with one another.

So there I am, on the phone with my wife, recapping their summer day and she says to me, "your daughter (4 years old) looked at the dog as it was walking away from her and asked, 'what are those two circles on the bottom of the dog?'"  Another reason that summer is so special...the endless learning opportunities.

¿Dónde está el baño!

Its 3a and the cell phone alarm 2 feet from my head goes off, much to the dismay of my wife.  I know that you're not supposed to keep your cell phone that close to you at night, but I wouldn't hear it if it was any farther away.  I have that very meaningful conversation with myself that we all have first thing in the morning of how I would be able to rearrange the day's tasks if I just got another hour of sleep.  After some self-negotiating, I decided to just get up and see what happens.

When you run that early in the morning, there is a lot of time to think.  I purposely don't bring the iPod because there are so few moments in life where there is little to no noise.  3a runs are some of those moments and I'm learning to treasure them.  I find myself rehashing what I thought, at each moment, were insignificant events in my life; where is the neighbor, that lived down my street when I was 4, that was always so nice to our family?, why do I remember what I was wearing to school on a particular day in 6th grade?, what about the time that my mother told me not to point at the obese woman across the street, I was 3 then?, or how about running down a silent street in the dark with the sudden urge to use the facilities...any facilities!!!...that was when I was 39 on June 15.  Somehow that is the most vivid for me.  There are really few things more motivating then a desperate need to find a bathroom.  Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.  When everyone sees the roll of toilet paper I have rolling around in the back seat of my car, they all comment on how good of an idea that is to have there.  Just make sure you tell people you got the idea from me.

Having just returned from a few days in the Dominican Republic with some old and new friends, I began to think that this year is half over.  Years of planning, travel arrangements, logistics, coordination, training, begging, feeling guilty for leaving my family...its half way there.  I feel better during runs, swimming is easier, hell...getting up in the morning is getting easier.  I now feel like its working, that part of me is turning back the imaginary clock I have in my mind.  I know that most people think this year is a ridiculous bout of midlife crises, but its really turning out to be my best year ever.