I Just Turned 50. This Is Progress

I have officially turned 50 years old. 🎉
I’m not happy or sad about that particular fact. To me, it just is.
And now…It’s 2:00 am, and I’ve woken up from what I had hoped would be a full sleep.

But tonight is a bit different than my usual nocturnal tryst. I’m up writing because some eternally active part of me has decided it’s a great time to do what I like to do with random energy I find.

Create.

And no, this was not planned.

I had (and have) many other things in mind to start this next phase of life.

But uh… back to blogging?

Yeah. I suppose that’s what this is.

Let’s begin with the details of what happened after my birthday :

A half-eaten birthday-cake donut with sprinkles sits next to my keyboard. The remainder of the box of sugar-frosted death bombs I was gifted are lying securely in the dumpster outside. They are appreciated, but I can’t (and won’t) allow get goaded into eating them all. I’m grown now, so I’ve made the adult decision to not consume an entire container or even save it for later. That’s a good thing for me, because my Body, Soul, and Mind have gotten to the point where they don’t put up with all that nonsense anymore.

Below is a quick account of the feels.

The Body

I get out of bed easily enough. A yawn and a quick stretch feel good, but it’s incomplete. My eyes stay fuzzy. My mouth is drier than it was before. My nostrils can’t decide whether they’re stuffed up, tingly, dry, or runny. There’s a slight wheeze in my lungs. My right knee is giving me a little tightness.

And as I headed to the kitchen, my left ankle politely tells tells me to walk softly and make no sudden moves. I can still feel the sugar from before throttling in my veins. All the carbs I downed remain illegally parked in some corner of my gut. But instead of looking for alcohol, leftover pizza, or whatever else, I’m going for a banana and cold water. I smirk as I get my potassium and toss the peel in the garbage. I’ll go brush my teeth now.

I’m feeling good.
This is progress.

The Mind

I head back to the bedroom and consider getting in a few games of online chess. But there’s a little bit of the THC softly buzzing in my head from earlier. It convinces me to relax for a moment and think:

“If something dumb happens, I might get pissed off, and that could harsh on my vibes a little bit.”

So I rule out playing games.

Maybe drawing…watching tv…reading…doomscrolling…nah.

What I actually feel like doing is writing.

Yeah. That’ll be my creative act.

I could journal some deep-ass thoughts about life, but that’s not *quite* the move either.

Maybe I should jot some quick thoughts like I usually enjoy doing.

Close…but I can do better than that.

I got it.

I’ll make a blog post for the Streaming Noise & Data Vortex (aka The Internet)

That feels like the “logically stupid” thing to do right now before getting back to sleep.

Since I like thinking, typing up paragraphs of sacred bull jive works for me.

It’s like I’m going deep and shallow at the same time.

This is fun.

And this too, is progress.

The Soul

I don’t even feel real right now.

At least… I don’t feel like I exist in the same reality I did about a week ago when I was young and stupid.

Life feels ethereal and weird. Not in an external kind of way like it was during the COVID era, but internally. It reminded me of that time when I hit my deepest meditation levels went numb to everything.

I feel like I’m experiencing a Doctor Strange situation.

I’m floating around my house in the astral plane watching my self do my thing. There I am typing in my black tank top and shorts right next to that cheap Target lamp that should have blown out by now.

I realize that’s actually the same ‘me’ from the past that used to sit in front of the computer banging out code, sequencing music, going down pseudo-factual rabbit holes, and planning world domination. I like that guy.

And somehow, my out-of-body form even notices that I am currently performing some version of ‘me’ at a future point in my story that hasn’t even been written yet. It’s weird, but I like it. (Take a moment with that one if you need to.)

I guess this Soul part of me really is timeless. Because I haven’t gone anywhere, but have been all around.

Somehow, that’s definitely “progress”.

So I guess what I’m saying is that when I turned 50, I became a stronger, sharper, and timeless being composed of pure light.

I became a force willing to make a jarring stop just to keep the cycle going.
Yeahhhh.

Alright…I’m going back to bed so I can make more progress on my Body, Mind, and Soul.

Thanks for riding with me.

-Benja-