birthdays

I'll be flying home from Ireland next week on my birthday.

I'm not sure I've ever been on an airplane on my birthday.

I expect special treatment from the flight attendants and two people in the cockpit at all times....

Two things that convince me I'm really as old as I truly am are how tentatively I walk in ice and snow and how freaked out I become about traveling.

I got pounds and euros, made sure my passport was where I thought it was, booked a hotel in Dublin for the night before I fly back, spent hours looking for a 'continuous voltage converter' (still no luck) and worried about parking at JFK and all sorts of travel related anxiety.

I don't think I used to be like this--worried so about details. But I am now and will probably get worse.

This is Thursday night and I'll probably be worrying about details I've forgotten until I take off Sunday. Not like me.

This 'traveling anxiety' is the only thing that contradicts, in me, my theory about aging: "as we get older, we get more like we've always been."

I get more left-wing every year while people who had some conservative stuff in them already get more conservative. I get less interested in doctrine (which never interested me anyway!) each year while doctrinal folks get more doctrinal. I care less about details as I age (which I never cared about much at all) and more interested in the 'big picture'. People who were 'tree' people instead of 'forest' people, as they age, become even more tree obcessed.

That's my theory and I'm sticking with it: as we age we get more like we've always been.

Ponder that and see what you think since we're all (with any luck at all) always getting older....