Taking Stock

It's kind of weird how the year is set up for me. It seems that each year around my birthday I start looking back at what has passed, and the concept of marking time is a strange thing.

What's the difference if we start something after October 18th or before?

"I'm gonna' start my diet on Monday," someone will invariably say as they shovel a huge lunch into their mouth on Friday.

Why can't we just start when we wanna' start?

We gotta' put a time frame on it to give it a chance to work.

Anywhoha...

Back to the taking stock portion of it all.

I can feel it too.

The feeling of dissatisfaction as the birthday date approaches.

"It's a lonely proposition when we realize there's left time in front then what's in back of the horse."

There was a lot of hand-wringing in the days leading up to the marking of my arrival on the planet.

But I got High Hopes.

And the day came in like so many others in the past few hours. Unable to sleep. Up at 3:30 in the morning. I received a text from my cousin who was wishing me a good day. Yeah. At 3:30. I answered it immediately.

"Thanks for thinking of me," I said.

"Family," he answered.

And it made me think of Breaking Bad and how close we are to finishing that series. A world of lies built on the thought of taking care of family.

My brother texted me.

Then a sister.

Another brother.

Another sister.

My beautiful wife.

Then the kids.

One, two, three.

Family.

And it started to dawn on me that the feeling of restlessness and the idea that more can be done, and yes, even the insomnia is all part of all of it.

The taking stock.

The High Hopes.

We all hung out. A nice dinner. A good cake. A few jokes at the old man's expense.

And then the thoughts of my Dad and how it never seemed like he was sweating so hard taking care of us.

But he was.

His waking up in the middle of the night was legendary story-stuff.

Once in awhile he'd buckle.

But he never broke bad.

Family.

High hopes.