C     U     T     E

isn’t always the way to
C          E          L          E          B          R          A          T          E

A     R E A L     B I R T H D A Y

L       I       F       E   

isn’t   about   a   number   of    Candles

on   a   quick-to-go-stale

Birthday  Cake.       .       . 

.       .       .Maybe the best part of old age for anyone is that they can actually

A   T   T   A   I   N            I    T

There are Givens:

Death   is   the   Number   One   Killer   in   the   World.       .       .

Life   is   a   Terminal   Sexually   Transmitted.       .       .

and   it   ENDS.         .         .

just not as well as we’d like.       .       .

Great Health, it turns out, is merely the slowest possible rate at which anyone can ever die.      .      .

But.         .         .

After some 23,276.57 Days on this spinning blue ball

552187 hours

33,131,232 minutes

198,787,398 seconds,

I’ve learned a few lessons.         .         .

and the biggest one:

There’s    just    a    few    more    lessons    to    learn.       .       .

There was a recent survey taken in the UK that said the biggest fears men have growing older are:

94% fear going bald

89% fear becoming impotent

75% are worried about going grey

64% are scared of getting fat

61% fear losing their teeth

45% dread needing  ‘jam jar’ glasses

31% are scared of going deaf

24% are frightened of getting bad breath

100% of me is concerned that I wasted time.        .        .

that somehow,

I didn’t become all of  M  E 

I regret little of what I’ve ever done.      .      .

even the not-so-good-kind-of-horrific-things

because they’ve all made up the tapestry of my life–especially the dark, ugly colors;

It’s the strands of threads that I didn’t allow to become a part of the mosaic.        .        .

to expand it

that taunts me.

It’s not the two-self published books,

it’s the yet-to-be published two novels,

five Children’s books,

three non-fiction books

and the yet to be written ones

that fill stacks of notebooks and overflowing file folders.      .      .      .

I have no interest in spewing out the   63  greatest things I’ve learned in my

 6 3  years.    .    .

I do believe that

R   e   l   a   t   i   o   n   s   h   i   p   s,   

not technology or medical advances,

Heals  me.      .      .

I do believe that   LOVE   is the greatest force in and out of this World

and when applied frequently and liberally  YOU  not only Change.      .      .

The Universe does, too.          .          .

I do believe that the secret to long life is simply never to let your heart stop beating     or never passing up the opportunity of making Another’s beat better.      .      .

I do believe that

Life is not counted by pages on a calendar or minutes/seconds on a clock or candles on a cake.      .      .but

M      O      M      E      N      T      S

that can never be counted, calculated, measured or harnessed.       .       .

o n l y    r e m e m b e r e d

way past a pulse, a heart beat, a breath

or any other means of defining Life that can’t be definite.      .      .      .

B     I     R     T     H     D     A     Y     S
are never what they’re cranked up to be
no matter how many you continue to collect
none of them mean a thing
until you make everyday between them mean
 E     V     E     R     Y     T     H     I     N     G

So.       .       .about that cake.       .       .

I’ll pass.          .           .

but  WOW.       .       .

that piece of Pecan Pie is looking mighty, mighty

f   i   n   e !

Join me.       .       .we’ll call it a

Party.        .          .a never-ending Celebration

.         .         .Candles are optional

The   Light   is   Blinding

(But, don’t Blink)