Weighing the years

This Sunday is my 39th birthday. For some reason, it is weighing heavily on me this year. I'm counting the days down until I'm just one year shy of 40. I would have thought I would have waited for next year, when I'm really turning 40, to be full of the awareness of another decade passing by, but I guess I decided to ponder on this issue this year.



Perhaps this is similar to my 26th birthday. During my 25th year, I'd gotten married, bought a house, and was "stuck" in a job I didn't particularly care for. 26 came with the realization that I had bills and responsibilities, listened to NPR, and was now officially a grownup. 30 passed with hardly a glance - I'd made goals to accomplish by the time I turned 30 (except for marriage - I hadn't made plans for marriage, expecting to gradually grow into spinsterhood), but I had already accomplished them by the time I turned 26.



So, here I am at 39, in another round of unusual work circumstances, slowly winding down the summer season of work, looking forward to leaving our cramped dorm room, but wondering what's next. While you all, except the Oregon Coasters, are likely experiencing the Dog Days of August, Fall is already in the air here with cool evenings, cool mornings, and afternoon rain showers, reminding us that just 2 months remain until we are adrift again, looking for work and looking for the land of Real Summer.



Perhaps the real number that's weighing on me is 50 - in 2 months, Alex turns 50. Since he has always claimed that he's going to live to be 100, he is definitely at his mid-age. I've already decided that October is going to be a month of birthday parties - 1st at YNP, 2nd will likely be in AZ with Alex's family when we pass through after our tour of Colorado and New Mexico, then the last one back in Oregon. I have yet to plan any of these, our indeterminate plans after October 11 (our end date with Xanterra) making it difficult to set a time frame for the parties, but I think Alex's induction into AARP is a perfectly good reason to have birthday parties all month long.



In the end, Sunday will likely pass just like any other day. Alex and I both have the morning shift, starting at 6:30. I'll get off around 2:30 and wait for him to wrap up his food prep for the day, usually around 4:00. If we're not too tired, we'll have an early dinner and go for a hike. Perhaps Alex will buy me a beer later on. Since we both report for work Monday morning, we'll call it a night early in the evening. If I'm lucky, Alex will remember to wish me a "Happy Birthday." :-) Then, I'll look forward to next year, when 40 will come in like a lamb.



On a side note, I've known my birthday was going to be on a Sunday since May 23, my father's birthday. When I was a child, living in Ohio, I made an astonishing discovery while writing my family's birthdays on my calendar - all 5 members of my immediate family have their birthdays on the same day of the week. Since they all fall after February (think leap year), this was not only true for that one year, but it happens year after year. As a child, I thought it was very special. As an adult, I still find it rather unusual. I was thinking about it again last night and rhetorically asked myself, "What are the odds?" Later (while in bed trying to go to sleep, which seems a reasonable time to be working on mathematical problems, right?), I realized I know what the odds are - 1 in 16807.