On Birthdays, years, and decades.

Today is my birthday.  And I am fortunate that I am spending it pretty much as I like -- not devoting my time to one particular task, but working on several things I wanted to work on, talking to friends and family, and generally having a very nice day.

Who could ask for more?

I did wind some yarn for one of my next projects:

You will be seeing more of this someday, probably soon, as soon as I get something finished.

49 seems like an odd number, an insignificant year, but it is ending up being a kind of important birthday for me.  I think I always go through this on the cusp of the decade change thing.  Oh I know that I have another year left in my 5th decade, and that 50 is the big number, the one everyone gets all excited about.  But I have never been one to make a big deal about those decade changes.  Each time I am looking forward to the next one.  50 will be big because I always thought I would be grown up by then.  I may be disappointed.  But then I have a year to prepare.

At 11:15 tonight I will have successfully completed my 49th year on this earth.  Although I will officially be 49 for the next year, meaning I have completed 49 years, I will also be starting to live through my 50th year at 11:16.  This is what I find so intriguing.  I will no longer be in my 40's.  They are done, finished, caput.  I am (or will be later today) 49 but I am embarking on my 50th year.  It is the same kind of thing as that decade thing.  When I turn 50 I will be beginning my 6th decade.  And now, I am still in my 5th decade, and I am 49 but I am actually beginning to live through my 50th year.  So although I am not yet at a milestone year, and I am not yet beginning a new decade, I am still, in one sense, saying goodbye to my 40's.  I have done with them.   Isn't this fun? 

Am I the only weird person who finds this interesting?  Being 49 is kind of like being in some in between place, neither here nor there.  My 50th year is the end of my 5th decade, and my 50th birthday is still a year away.  But my 40's are gone.  What happens next?  If you read old gravestones, you sometimes find "he died in the 50th year of his life" meaning, well, that he was 49.  He made it partway through the 50th year but didn't reach the birthday, he didn't make it to the milestone.   

I guess I see these "9" years as interesting precisely because of these juxtapositions of the measurement of time.  Being 49 is kind of an in-between place, no longer in my 40's, beginning my 50's but not yet in my 6th decade, not yet 50. Kind of like I am in training for being 50. 

Well, I have a year to practice being the person I want to be when I am 50. I hope it will be enough time.

Comments

[Gina]

Happy Birthday to you. I hope you had a nice time last night. It was a pleasure to celebrate the evening with you! Continue celebrating through the weekend...through the month even. This is big stuff!

[Marji]

I have the same kind of convoluted mind.
and it seems that the b'days that have 'gotten to me' are those in the middle of the decades - the 35 and 45, not the big 0's.

Hope you had just the kind of day you wanted. Have a bright and happy year. Filled with good things.

[lisa]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

[Grace]

Happy Birthday.

I don't find those musings strange at all. Chinese babies are born a year old (gestation counts). When I was 16, my mom let me go to Germany and then take a train to Sweden all on my own. When I got home and thanked her for placing so much trust in a 16 year old, she just stared at me.

"You are 16? I thought you were 18 and I couldn't stop you! I knew you were 17 and remembered that I needed to adjust one year. I should have subtracted instead of adding a year."

Too late, mom. I already went. ;-)