Fifty Years of TheJason™

Today I turn the big Five-Oh. Not Hawaii Five-Oh, mind you; nothing that exciting. Rather, I've made it a full half-century ... and, more disconcertingly, 20 percent of the entire history of the American Republic. (Happy 250th, 'Murica!)

Funny thing, though. I don't feel old. Turning 50 was far less traumatic than turning 30. And although various milestones tend to prompt Deep Pontification, this year I'm pretty much cheerfully blasé about the whole affair, as one can witness from the photo history:

I was rather a sexy mofo at 30, wasn't I? Although sartorially, definitely a product of the peak mid-2000s Boy Band era. Oops.

Anyway.

Some observations:

• I'm still in the center of my prime — that window from roughly 35 to 65 when you're firing on all cylinders in the game of life. I do not dread "50."
• It helps that I feel great. Apart from hereditary hypertension, I have no health problems, and studying karate and working with young horses has put me in better shape than my potato-like appearance would otherwise suggest. That said, I'm also at the point where more attention to diet and exercise is advisable right meow to avoid a slow decline into chronic disease and debilitation. So I've been working on that. Over the last 18 months or so, my alcohol consumption has dropped to effectively nil and I enjoy maybe two or three cigars per year. I'm transitioning to the MIND Diet (a mix of DASH for hypertension and Mediterranean). And I'm doing more exercise.
• Over this past summer, I've nailed down a new way of organizing and scheduling that really seems to be working across all domains. For the last three years, I've felt like a pendulum, swinging in one direction to solve a dumpster fire "over there" then swinging back to extinguish the fires elsewhere that arose from inattention while solving a different, self-inflicted crisis. I'm not yet at 100 percent equilibrium — a few big to-do items are still on the docket — but the swings have decreased in intensity by 80 percent since June. It's taken far longer than I planned, but it's working.
• Speaking of time: My days are shifting. I'm still good for the same amount of hours per day at 50 as I was at 20. What'd different is where those hours fall relative to the clock. I'm naturally getting up earlier and earlier, and going to bed earlier and earlier. It's not unusual these days for me to just BE UP at, say, 4:30 a.m., and then I get to work. When I was younger, my body was optimized for second shift: I'd get up around 10 or 11 a.m. and go to bed around 2 or 3 a.m., for a 16-hour day. Now, I'm up typically around 6 or 6:30 a.m. and in bed by 10 or 11 p.m., for a 16-hour day.
• Time yields to tradition. Families grow and decline and change; the comfortable traditions of childhood eventually fade away. Cade and I are actively working through touch points throughout the year that are our traditions — like summer vacations in Kentucky or a private vegetarian Thanksgiving celebration or a "one special ornament per year" Christmas-tree goal.
• I've developed a comprehensive reading program that I'm really excited to start in January, and I've felt a new energy about writing now that I've started "Silent Writing Thursdays" in the office's conference room. (Well, Theon d'Cat is not silent, but we give him a free pass.) Engaging with ideas has always energized me, and over the last few months or so it feels as if I've rediscovered something I'd misplaced and assume had vanished. That "approaching equilibrium thanks to better organization" thing from the previous bullet applies here: Less time for the urgent-but-not-important, more time for the important-but-not-urgent.
• My faith life has gotten back on track over the last year. Finding and respecting the discipline of structured prayer — particularly in the Catholic context — reminds me that I am not, in fact, God.
• Death is inevitable but decrepitude is a choice. The nice thing about being active at church is that I cross paths with people ranging from elementary-school kids (the altar servers) to the frail elderly and the deceased. If one is careful enough, one can tease out a median life trajectory. We can't control accidents of fate, like the car crash that recently took the life of one of my high-school classmate's sons. But we can control both our health and our attitudes as we progress on our individual journeys on this side of the turf. As has been said about the United Kingdom also applies to humans: Decline is a choice, not an inevitability.
• I'm more sensitive to relationships. Historically, I've never been one to be the first to keep a friendship on the front-burner. But as the years progress, I am noticing absences more than I used to. One of my last "bigger than a breadbox" to-dos is to account for the people in my life — even the dormant friends in far-off places — and at least make the effort to reconnect outside of social media.
• Animal relationships matter, too. For most of my life, pets have been a normal part of life. And I've adored so many of them; I'll never forget Tweetie d'Bird, the cats Morris and Murphy and Fiona and Theon and Kali, the family dogs Kate and Jazz and Shiloh. I remember fondly my mom's horses, Dandy and Dee and Dakota and Dance and Phoenix. But it wasn't until Tyr that I really felt a two-way bond with a non-human animal. He brings me joy and helps ground me in nature. It's been said that there's no stronger relationship than between a man and his horse, and until I felt it, I never appreciated the truth of it. Although I adore my Macey Mae and Cade's horses Oliver and Kodiak and Valkyrie and Bolt — Tyr is a heart horse, and having him fills a hole in me that I didn't know was there. He just turned six; God willing, we'll have many years together.
• Oh, and I have a Cade. Highly recommended!

All for now. Here's to the next 50 years.