Pausing to Reflect

I just remembered, today is my birthday. As you can probably deduce from that statement, we don’t tend to make a big deal out of birthdays around here. We’ll go out to dinner tonight to celebrate, but for me, it’s the everyday stuff that really matters in life.

That said, I am fifty-nine years old today–one year shy of sixty, a number that looms as a significant milestone to me. In the normal course of a career, I should be carefully calculating for retirement. Instead, I’m still in the hunt for my breakout book. Maybe the next one?

I’ve got a general idea of what the next book will be about. I’ve accumulated lots of notes as I’ve tried to develop the idea. And while I’ve always outlined new projects, this time I’m going to try to do a lot more pre-planning than I’ve managed in the past. Hopefully that will help the actual writing go faster and make it more enjoyable — but by the time the next book is out, I will be sixty. Or sixty-one?

The numbers have become more meaningful to me because I don’t feel as strong and active as I did even a few months ago.

I’ve been blessed with good health for most of my life and as recently as February I was still running three miles on the treadmill, lifting weights at the gym whenever possible, and doing a lot of physically demanding yard work. Since then, lack of time, along with joint issues, have led me to cut way back on physical activity. I need to change that trend and get back into both running and weight-lifting! This avatar is the only one I’ve got. I need to keep it in good shape — or I’m never going to write that breakout book.