In the middle of chaos I turned fifty. Instead of a birthday party, I attended a work function for my wife, wedged between emergencies. The Church Christmas party and program had blown up, mostly because the person who was doing the program broke her back in a rollover accident. While she didn't have a choice between the two, now that she is recovering she has commented that all-in-all it wasn't such a bad alternative. You know the drill.

But, as I look forward to this year, it is almost as if I had turned thirty-six again. My weight is almost to where it was then, I have a six year-old in the house again, the weight training I started three years ago actually has me stronger than I was hoping to get then, and I'm back to being my natively cheerful self, feeling real emotions. I'm thinking about writing projects, probably the same ones (more or less) than I was then, including a book on mediation and a book on negotiation.

I've even quit snoring.

It is almost as if my life has started over. Given the number of long lived people in my family, I've probably hit the mid point and am starting over in a lot of ways. It is tempting to treat this entire year as a birthday celebration -- but I'll skip the cake. After all, I'm enjoying having lost weight.

I'll write another post when I get back in town, but we are soon to be off to celebrate our wedding anniversary. As always, a compromise date, so not everything is starting over, but everything does have hope and joy once again.