I’ve been unable to write of any consequence for the last couple of months.  Last night I gave serious thought about how I might shut down this little blog and began in earnest in writing the piece that would do that.  This morning I scrapped it.

In early fall I was dating a good gal.  The two of us took a drive one day.  From her side, she asked me, “You drive this old car, slip into a World Series jacket, and wherever you go someone winds up striking up a conversation about one or the other.  What do you suppose that says about you?”

“Please talk to me, I guess.”

And they have:  women and men, straight and gay, white and other, rural and urban, rich and poor, successful and working on it, conservative and liberal, faithful and unaffiliated.  I’ve enjoyed it all, and this Thanksgiving will find me thankful for that.   It also reminds me what a shame it is they don’t do a better job of talking to each other, and how common it is becoming to simply have no connection at all.

The blog’s original premise was that there is nothing so ancient to connect us to the human experience than the sharing of a story.  Just as ancient is the refusal to connect.  From Bobby Kaufmann to Hamilton, I guess.

There might be a good chance that around the Thanksgiving Day table, some of those groups you aren’t part of will be seated there.  You can refuse to deal with them if you want.  You can also opt to be present and accounted for.  If so, save more of the speech than you would have otherwise.  Replace it with a story and try to let them write a little of it.

It gets you out of your group, them out of theirs, and you become what you always were:  two people in the end.

“Maybe tomorrow, Honey, someplace down the line,
I’ll wake up older, so much older, momma,
I’ll wake up older, and I’ll just stop all my trying.”

When I turned thirty, they had a party at the world-famous Cumming Tap.  I drank with friends, and I remember thinking how I was almost on the cusp of something.  How I was almost there.

I don’t remember where the ‘there’ was exactly.  It doesn’t matter now anyhow.  ‘There’ is always where we think it ought to be.  It isn’t, though.  It turns out to be nothing more than the places we find along the way.

Recently I turned 40 on an empty stomach and in the same location.  I hung out at the back of the bar this time.  Eventually I had enough beer to step ahead, just like we’d done 10 years ago.  Shots came around from the bar, and the evening gets dark, save a vague recollection of the chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes that made a vain attempt to soak up the alcohol which had already gotten a big head start.

The only thing I was on the cusp of was a hangover.

Though my short night would seem to point otherwise, I’ve reached 40 with a better idea where that elusive there is.  It’s no longer an income, or a status, or a job.  It’s simply an idea of the man I would like to be.

I’ve got a better idea of the principles I want to get there with, and the path in the dark wood I much take to reach it.  I’ve begun to find the maturity to know I’ll never see the finish line, and I hope I’ve found the wisdom that part of our purpose in life is to make sure we don’t.

We are never as far away as when we think we’ve arrived.  It’s the constant state of becoming that makes a man.  I’ll grow up one of these days.

40, then, is the age when you replace the destination with the journey.  May you turn it having had lunch or dinner.  Afterwards, may you find your way back to the path.