“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.