I'm injured..not young and tomarrow is my birthday...Haw!
Tonight I worked my fingers to the bone. Our squadron is deploying to Key West and we had to get the jets ready to leave tomarrow. Most of the people going took the night off, so there was just a few of us. I had to change 3 main landing gear tires and 2 nose landing gear tires. They each weigh about 100 pounds each and you have to fight them over a brake that has very close tolerances. They are bulky and heavy. My back is killing me as well as everything else. Usually I don't have to do heavy stuff like that. I'm so stiff I can hardly move. What do I expect. Tomarrow is my birthday. I turn 44. I just can't believe it! How wierd it is to be getting old, because aside from the aches and pains, in my mind I'm still just a goofey kid. Maybe that's a good thing? I am going to do my best not to get depressed over this birthday thing this year. Who the heck cares anyway? Getting older is just a part of the cycle of life. I should view it as a blessing really. Well, when I look back, and see all the times I should have died. No kidding, really really died, I cringe. Many of my friends didn't make it along the way. I miss them so much still. I first felt the sting of death at 12 when my friend Cary was run over by an automobile while we were playing. Before I was to graduate high school, I would feel that pain 6 more times. And now, at 43, I've had probably 20 people leave this world that I knew. So, really, why should I freak over one year? I should be thankful! I have crashed an airplane and lived to tell about it, I have been in a head on collision in a car and walked away from it, I have been swept over a waterfall and broken my ankel, shoulder and back, I have had a scuba accident and got the "bends" (decompression sickness) been almost shot more than once, and been in combat. I am still here! I am alive! I will be thankful. I will be grateful! I have people who really love me even though sometimes it's hard to tell because they are caught up in thier own lives. I think when i wake up tomarrow, I'm going to make a concious decision to count my blessings all day. To really meditate on those I've lost, and to thank God that he spared me through it all. Though all the crazieness and stupidity....Yes, I will have a happy birthday. I will.....