It’s 10:18pm. I’m sitting at my desk, blurry eyed, and wrestling with competing thoughts about what I should do (going to bed), vs writing something about my feelings right now, (the reason why I’m struggling to sleep).
It’s my birthday tomorrow.
I will be in the next hour and 40 mins, 38 years old, which is the source of my cognitive noise right now.
To be honest, I often find myself staring up, into the sky and wondering how I’m still here. I’m genuinely surprised I’m still here at 38.
My feelings, I can only describe as complex.
This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve mentioned this on this blog, but I’m very open about the fact that I’m surprised I’m still here.
Surviving my body failing on me, consistently. Surviving a childhood that I can only really describe as tumultuous. Surviving being a lost young man, in the world, with no direction.
And yet, here I am. Finding myself staring up again, reflecting and wondering again.
I still remember when I started this blog, it would have been thirteen years ago. I called it “An Older Man”, which in hindsight isn’t a very good name, gives off weird vibes, but that was never my intention. The idea was that I was closing the chapter of my youth as a young man, and as this new chapter started, with each year passing and each page turning, I would become an older man.
The birth of my first daughter was what prompted this change. That blurry vision of the future I had as a young man finally snapped into focus. Someone depended on me, and so, I needed to live.
I needed to become an older man.
With each passing year, those feelings of a deep loneliness, apathy and anger slip away like sand between my fingers.
I’m glad these feelings are leaving me. I find what’s being replaced is feelings of gratitude, relief and happiness.
But, at the same time, those moments where I look up at the sky, I still get feelings of nervousness, confusion and concern.
The sheer weight of recognising that so much had to go right for me to survive, it almost crushes me. It’s so heavy. So heavy that I have to force myself to surrender to the fact that even with all this misfortune, I am, ultimately incredibly fortunate. And that’s where I land emotionally.
I feel fortunate.
And that feeling scares me a little bit.
That feeling that my life has been, and still is, constantly in the balance, like my misfortune and fortune were balanced on scales. The thought that I got lucky, that the weight of my fortune eventually outweighed my misfortune, it doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t like leaving things up to fate.
In saying that, my last post I spoke about surrendering. As I walk upstairs, I see a handwritten note from my youngest daughter, a present laid out early for my birthday.
Love washes over me. And so, I surrender to the fact that my fortune has outweighed my misfortune.
It’s my birthday in 42 minutes, and I feel fortunate that I’m gifted with love.
Cody
Cody Spencer Photography 