I am now truly a Square. Seven squared that is.

It's an interesting age as I'm still young enough in body to do quite a lot. In fact, just yesterday I biked twelve miles in about an hour and felt invigorated. And this last Summer I was able to go camping for eight full days with my daughter and had a wonderful time, felt very much alive. But I'm also recognizing my age in various ways. I definitely do not have the energy I once did and find that staying up late, even at cons, just isn't something my body can do anymore. I manage to have a great time, but I'm definitely more laid back about things than I would have been ten to twenty years ago.

I am grateful that I was able to do that camping trip this Summer. Just my daughter and I camping for eight straight days at Pennsylvania State Parks. We did a lot of fun stuff together, including swimming, biking (twenty miles in three hours, which is the most my daughter has ever done), pet and feed deer, and a good bit of hiking. And the both of us got really good at putting up and tearing down the tent. And I was delighted how quickly I settled back into camping mode, and how little trouble I had sleeping on a cot for eight days. It was the most fun I've had with my daughter all year long.

As for my daughter, she's not yet a teenager, but she may as well be. Gone are the days of Bluey and Duck Tales. Now it's Demon Slayer, K-Pop Demon Hunters, and the like. The days of reading books together are also gone, and I say that with heavy heart. I know that this is a natural part of growing up that the child will grow away from the parent. But it is a difficult transition and likely the hardest part of the years ahead. It is not that we do not enjoy time together (see camping trip), but that our relationship has changed and continues to change and we both must figure it out.

While I have not written too much in the last year, one thing I have started doing again is reading for myself. I've finished a few books in the last few months and I hope to finish a few more before the year is done. This is better than endlessly playing video games, though I've done a bit of that too.

I suppose what is becoming more pertinent to me as I near the 50 mark and beyond (already thinking what retirement could look like) is something I read from a book a number of years ago. The book is T. M. Doran's "Toward the Gleam" which is a historical novel from the mid-twentieth century I highly recommend. At one point the main character meets a woman who attempts to seduce him and he nearly falls for it. Decades later in the epilogue he meets the same woman again. His own life since the events of the book has seen his marriage and raising a family; but the woman kept trying to do the same things she could in her youth, including seducing men in their twenties and thirties; and she was failing miserably and looked ridiculous to boot. There is a natural order to aging that medical science has not changed, merely extended. I'm not in my 20s or 30s anymore, and that's okay. I'm not going to pretend either.

That means some opportunities are closed to me, but many are still open, and many adventures still lay ahead. But part of my adventures now is to prepare my daughter for her own adventures which will begin sooner rather than later. She's already talking about getting a part-time job to help raise money! Ah, I love her and am so proud of her.

So I'm 49 now... one year away from half a century. Life is full of hope and I'm grateful to God for the years I've had and the years yet to come. May all of you on your birthdays/hatchdays be able to say the same!

My previous hatch/birthday journals are here.

37: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5036489/
38: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6092268/
39: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7018568/
40: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7796928/
41: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8402940/
42: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8867733/
43: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9257568/
44: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9608508/
45: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9980730/
46: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10322726/
47: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10681077/
48: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10949841/

Dominus vobiscum