The Next Thirty Years
is the name of a country song that was playing on the radio as I drove home from Jon and Elise’s last night. My favorite lyric in the song is, “The next thirty years will be the best years of my life – raise a little family and hang out with my wife.” I just love that he says hang out. It’s so calm. It’s so accepting. It’s just right: What to do with the next thirty years? Find someone cool. Hang out.My birthday sucked as usual. It started with dropping Operaman at the airport, still sleepy from midnight mass. It ended with wishing bars in Portland were open on Christmas, but with that not really mattering since no one was around to have a drink. In the middle there were a couple good parts even though my main plans fell through. I got the most beautiful scarf from Bridget in the mail. Elise, who shares my crappy birthdate, shared her elegant birthday dinner with me. And Talley called drunk off her ass at eleven, which was the next best thing to being drunk off my ass on a barstool next to her.
Though the timing in many ways leaves much to be desired, I will say this: it’s nice to have a birthday at the end of the year. Because then it all starts over at once. And though 2007 wasn’t full of the sorts of tragedies that make a Bad Year, I know more than a few people who aren’t sad to see it go. It’s not been a Bad Year but it’s been a lame year sometimes, a cranky and unsatisfying year. A year of questionable choices. A lot of treading water. Waiting for the right job and waiting for the next elections and waiting for something that feels like arrival. That last one will screw you, of course.
And 2008? Look at it, all even and round. What a promising year! I know a couple babies who will be showing up to kick things off. There are a couple weddings on the calendar already. I’m shaking off 2007 along with being thirty. The last thirty years have been rather splendid, actually, but this last one was a bit embarrassing. Not quite up to standard. So let’s try this again, like we mean it. Once more with feeling.
posted by tortaluga @ 5:00 PM
2 Comments:
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Your love of country western music is as endearing as it is *wrong*.
Next year come hang out with me. I'm always perfectly happy to forget about Christmas and do something else entirely.
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