As I am sure most people reading this know by now, my 30th birthday was yesterday. To be perfectly honest, it doesn't feel much different than Saturday when I was 29. The big difference I have noticed when you get older is that you don't feel a change all in one day, but rather, it is a slow decline in your body's performance. I definitely noticed it yesterday during an all day kickball championship playoff. (For those of you who don't know, I am in a kickball league based out of New Haven). During the season, we played one game every Sunday, working our way through the 16 teams in our league. I noticed that every Monday I would wake up and my muscles would be sore, not that I did anything extravagant, I just happened to kick a ball, run around some bases, and occasionally catch one in the outfield. I chalked it up to not being a runner and not really doing anything extra in the way of working out other than actually working at my job. Well, yesterday was a different matter. The playoffs included all 16 teams and it was a process of elimination until one team won it all. Our first game was at 1230, which we won, and then continued on till 430 which was when the last game was supposed to start. We won our first game; and then won the other three which left us as the champions for the season, totally undefeated. Let me tell you, four games of intense kickball, in the sun, all day, takes its toll.
For me, it wasn't so much my muscles that smarted during the day (and to be perfectly honest, they are doing just fine this morning), but rather my joints, my damn joints. It was mostly my ankles that took a beating during the day and I am just glad that we didn't have one more game because I don't know if my ankles would have been able to take it. Don't get me wrong, I stretched throughout the day, rotating my ankles and kneecaps, making sure all my muscles were limbered up, but for some reason my ankles still hurt. Just a sign of getting older I guess. Yet, despite the mild discomfort of my aching ankles, I didn't feel a thing after we won our last game. There is something about going a whole season undefeated and then winning everything during a playoff tournament to take the pain away. It was definitely exciting and the only change I would make would be to have my wife and son there with me. Unfortunately, being an all day event, they opted to stay home. It was probably a good idea that they did because our son was a little cranky yesterday according to my wife, but such is life, I still wish they were there with me. The best part about winning the playoffs is that it doesn't have to end. The winning team can opt to fly out to Las Vegas for the national kickball championships where they will receive free room and board during the games. Talk about bringing back kickball from grade school.
I personally think it would be a blast to make it out to Las Vegas with my team and see what we could do against the other winning teams. Yet, that all depends on if our whole team can make it out there and on a personal level, if I could afford the plane ticket. I guess we will just have to wait and see on that one. So looking back at yesterday, it was a pretty damn good birthday. The way I look at it is, if I live till I am 90, I have only lived one third of my life and it seems like such an adventure so far. I have accomplished a lot, taken a wrong turn every so often, but somehow have ended up where I am today. I am lucky to have many great friends and acquaintances. Most importantly, I am lucky to have found my wife and now am lucky to have my son around. My family is amazingly supportive and looking around at my life, I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't change dropping out of college, I wouldn't change starting my business, I just wouldn't change anything. Everything I have done so far has led me to where I am today. I know the next 30 years will probably be crazy, but I will push through and see where life takes me. As Robert Frost once said in his poem "The Road Not Taken":
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
Sounds kind of like my life!
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