As most everyone who knows me knows, I will be 41 next month. When I was younger I started a 30 day countdown until my birthday so everyone would be aware of the number of shopping days there were until said birthday happened. These days, while I could care less about how old I am, I also would much prefer a nice dinner with my friends somewhere the night of my birthday. Seriously, gifts are not important to me.
I wish that the first year of my forties would have listened to me when I told everyone this. Apparently it took it upon itself to get me a few things. I wish it would have also given me the receipts for these things as I would gladly like to return them.
I have had insomnia ever since I can remember so not going to sleep is nothing new for me. However, I was relatively surprised when after I took a sleep study to find out that I have sleep apnea. Oh and not only do I have sleep apnea, I have one of the most severe cases noted in a person my age. I always have been an over achiever. When I told this to Jeff I was met with a nod and an "I told you so" face, which I will admit that I readily deserved. Now when I go to bed I take a sleeping pill and put on a mask with a hose running from it that attaches to a machine on my night stand which constantly circulates air to help me breathe AND matches absolutely nothing my bedroom. I have never seen a Storm Trooper from "Star Wars" sleep, but if I were a betting man I would think that it would look a lot like me.
Glasses are something else that I have had since I was about thirteen or fourteen years old and I will admit that I am a glasses man. If I put on a pair of contact lenses it is for one purpose only...to change my eye color to match what I am wearing. Glasses however give about 99% of the world the look that they know what is going on. They are especially good props for meetings where you feel like you have to make the impression that you are really smart. (I also use my college class ring as a similar prop). Last week I went to LensCrafters to get my new glasses, all ready to hear the familiar "your prescription is enough to be annoying" speech from the doctor. Not so much. I was told after my exam that I needed bifocals. Certainly there has to be a mistake I said when she reminded me that I was about to be 41 and that this was a natural progression to aging. My own natural progression was to tell her a thing or two about herself that she could change, like her blue eye shadow, but I just took my prescription to the attendant, picked out a pair of ridiculously overpriced Prada frames that I thought benefited an old, blind mine and headed to happy hour to work all of this out.
Now I know that these gifts are meant to help me. One of the main ways you can tell someone is alive is when they are breathing and reading can be quite difficult when your vision always looks like that you went swimming with your eyes open in an over chlorinated swimming pool. I am interested in seeing what gifts my forty first birthday produces. I am already ignoring people so I will know what it is like when I really can't hear them!
Made a wrong turn once or twice...Welcome to my silly life
