Photo by Moses Pendleton

Well, I’ve been carrying on about it all week, but today is my actual birthday.  I was going to get all profound about my life and lie about how being fifty is so much better than being forty, or thirty or twelve.   I was going to list all the things I plan on doing before I’m sixty, describe the ways I’m going to alter my personality so that I will go to heaven when I die, though I don’t really believe in heaven.  But just in case there is one, I like to increase my odds of going there, as opposed to the other place that I don’t really believe in, but I’ve heard is really, really hot.  I was going to write about the fact that I think about dying more now, probably because there’s no denying that I’ve already lived the bulk of my life.  But I woke up this morning with an overwhelming feeling of being utterly blessed in this life and feeling grateful for that.

Thank you Tammy, for reminding me in yesterdays comments, of this wonderful Billy Collins poem called Forgetfulness.

FORGETFULNESS, by Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.