Fifty

Fifty. I don't feel it. Not in my head at least. My body feels it for sure. I get sore easier, I get injured easier, recovery takes a longer time, my body aches more in the mornings.
  They, whoever "they" are, like to say things like "50's are the new 40's" or "40's are the new 30's" Well, if that is the case, my "new 30's" were painful.
  The irony is that the older I get, the harder I push myself in certain things. Maybe it is because I remember what I was capable of in my real 30's. Things came easier. To achieve the same results as I once did, I have to work harder to get there.

  They also say that with age comes wisdom but they never seem to say the same thing for maturity. My wife will tell you that my maturity level is perpetually stuck in my teens. Apparently she tells our kids that to! Just a few nights ago, Apollo told me that, "Mama said that you're not much different than a kid." Although I am sure it was not meant as a compliment, I will take it as such. I still think of people that are the same age as me as being much older. But then I look in the mirror and have a hard time reconciling that the face I am seeing belongs to the person that I envision in my head. My residual self image is that of a 20 something.
  At fifty, I have a 1st grader and a 4th grader still at home. How did that happen? I often wonder if physically it would have been easier to have kids in  my 20's rather than in my forties. It comes back to pushing myself harder (physically) for what would have been easier 20 to 30 years ago.

 I travel a lot for work these days and spend many nights hotels. Actually, I have always traveled for work and have always enjoyed life on the road and have never minded being in hotels. Now that I am older and have Apollo and Orion at home, I find that I would much rather be home with my family. Melanie likes to point out how nice it must be for me to have someone clean my room everyday, cook for me and clean up the dishes, etc. Yeah, that is nice, but I really miss the my routine of putting the boys to bed, getting them all riled up, getting yelled at reprimanded by Melanie for amping them up when I should be winding them down. Then in the morning, waking them up by tickling them, sprinkling water on them, cranking up some rock music, and getting yelled at reprimanded again because Melanie is trying to squeeze in 20 extra minutes of sleep. I will take a hundred nights of that chaos over any one night in a hotel.

  Don't get me wrong, I love my alone time but life on the road is not what I crave. Give me a winding, hilly country road far from the city and a road bike and that is where I find my solace and meditation. The sights, sounds, smells, and wind on my face, all change with each crank of the peddle. The smell of Redwoods, soil, moss, and wildflowers are incredible, especially in the spring time here.  Cycling has been my passion for the past 4 years, starting originally by pulling Apollo on a Trail-A-Ride tag along bike with a bike trailer connected to that for Orion. I towed them all over Sonoma county. Now they are on their own bikes and can easily do 10 to 16 miles with me, albeit on flatter roads and at a slower pace than I like. I know that it wont be long before they can keep up with me and not much longer before I cant keep up with them.

  I am looking forward to my fifties to include many more adventures with my little tribe; on two feet, two wheels, two wings, whatever it takes to get there, I know I will be in good company and will always strive to be "not much different than a kid."