I'll be spending my birthday on BIG Talbot Island's Black Rock Beach where people are welcome to drop by and wish me well. (For details go to next bold section header.)
This page serves as: announcement, invitation, semi-centennial life appraisal, wish list for gift givers, hub of links to what I'm doing now, etc. I'm sending this message far and wide because I want the people I care about to know how well I am in this moment.
The rest of this section is a reflection on my life as I reach 50.
The key word in the headline is "celebrates" because it is undeniably true and was not at all guaranteed. I am happier now than ever before in life, and sharing that news with people I love makes me happier still. What a joyful way to meet the half century mark!
I'm grateful. Thank you!
I'm grateful for my own hard work and not giving up; and also to everyone seeing this message who has helped sustain me along the way. The journey to get here has often been very difficult for me. Every friendship, good laugh, insightful conversation, painting appreciated, uplifting message, and even likes and comments on social media all have contributed to lifting me up. Most sincerely, THANK YOU.
The pandemic has had a positive impact on my personal happiness, by taking me away from other projects, driving my focus inward. The pandemic also brought home for me the fact that life is not in the future, but happening now, and for a limited time. I am now putting all my time and effort into working towards the goals that matter most to me. My entire life I have felt that things were not quite right. Of course there is plenty that is still "not right" about our world, but I have learned to be happy in my life.
Positive changes include:
• Learning to cook
• Living in a well-organized home
• Regular exercise
• Greater control over how I process my emotions. I am grateful that I have not had to give up being a highly emotional person to experience increased productivity and serenity.
• After years (probably decades) of feeling unable to bear silences, drowning out potentially uneasy thoughts with various audiovisual media every waking (and sleeping!) moment; now I am free again to sit and sleep in silence, to read, to choose when I listen to or watch something, including control over my consumption of social media. This reawakening has been a HUGE improvement in my life.
• Most recently I have changed how I look at my longstanding lower back pain—from something that I am suffering from to something that I am doing to myself. It's not that the herniated disc is not real, the matter is how did it get to be that way? While still taking medication daily for the pain, I am focused as well on physical and mental changes that help. Mental? Yes. I realize that I have stored stress in that part of my body. Whenever something anxiety inducing arose I "folded in" on myself, compressing my spine. Think of a turtle going into its shell, only I don't have one.
• All the above, and more, is occurring, happily, productively, and daily. I've never known a time this good before, primarily because I have let go of so many mental burdens.
I could honestly go on and on. In fact, I have started writing a book! My working title is How To Be, divided into two parts, How To Be Depressed, followed by How To Be Happy. I have written notes and outlines for many sections within. (I'm a big fan of On Being with Krista Tippett, and all of Paul Holdengräber's interview series, most recently The Quarantine Tapes. Those programs have introduced to me many creative people who have become influences. I mention this because once I would have viewed writing as a pipe dream, but I know that "real" people of many backgrounds and ages are out there producing meaningful work.) If you would like to dip a toe into my writing progress start with a Google doc of highlights,
https://tinyurl.com/RobBlogHighlights — or you can jump into the deep end on the full blog,
https://www.patreon.com/rmiddleton.
For those not so into reading, I have good news. The introduction is ended. Go in peace!
