6 Months Until the Big 4-0

Actually, it is less now.  Yesterday, November 17th, is technically my half birthday, and frankly, any other year the date has passed without much notice at all.  It is probably the next frontier for Hallmark cards, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter all that much.  However, since I'm reaching a milestone birthday, the date is taking on a little more importance.

40 is one of those weird ages, especially in the gay community.  I have friend's in their 20s who constantly dread and think their lives will end at 30.  I've always been of the mind that the 20s were pretty horrible and my 30s have been great.  I've certainly done a lot in my 30s from finally getting to New York to being the head of a large metropolitan area Pride organization, but 40 is quite the enigma for me.  I don't have any sort of dread about reaching middle age.  There is very little I would change up to this point.  Do I really know where I want to be in the next 5, 10, or 20 years.  No, not really, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

How did I celebrate my 39.5 birthday?  Well, I stayed home from work, and then I went to my CrossFit class where we were doing 1 rep maxes for dead lift.  I've been having a mental block with it of late, after having a pretty early success lifting 420 pounds probably close to a year ago.  I have no doubt I am strong, but something in my brain was psyching myself out whenever dead lifts would pop up on the schedule.  This coupled with inconsistent visits through the summer basically lead me to believe that I was a weakling who couldn't lift that much anymore.  Well, I powered through, and I bested my max by 25 pounds (445).  I'm pretty proud of myself, and if I can keep this up, I might actually be in better shape when I turn 40 than I was when when I turned 30!