33 Years Old

As my fingers tap their way across this keyboard, I find myself sitting at the Fox Den with a cup of freshly-pressed coffee and a pot of soup on the stove. Outside on this January afternoon, the sun is peaking through the clouds and as of this sentence, there is no suspicious activity in the back lane to report.  

I don’t know what is up with me these days, but I have been avoiding Microsoft Word like the fluorescent lighting at a Walmart. For weeks now, it seems every time I sit down to write, I find a million other more important tasks to do. Just the other day, I sat down with a goal to write 500 words. One paragraph in, I abandoned my post as soon as I discovered my bookcase was not sparking nearly enough joy.

Creatively, I hate to admit this, but I would have to describe this period of my life as, well, impotent. Each morning, I wake up with a mild to moderate hangover and an intention to make this day more productive than the last. Alas, as the weeks go by and the bottles of wine are recycled, I find myself praying to Meryl that this too shall pass.

Looking back, I remember a writing assignment I completed as an eight-year-old boy that asked me the question: if you could choose to be any age, which age would you choose and why? While the majority of kids in my class chose to be sixteen (so they could drive) I answered thirty-three. Why? Because at the time, my little ginger brain reasoned that by then: my broken nose would be fixed, and I would have a wife, two kids, a house and a dog.

Of course, now that I am thirty-three, my future has turned out slightly different than I once wrote it and thank Meryl for that. While my nose is still broken (some things never change) and I am not married with children or a house or a dog, I am not without by any means. I am grateful to have a Fox Den to call home, a pooch nephew by the name of CLARK, and close relationships with some of the most gorgeous women to ever walk this planet.

Regarding baby foxes, I would still like to have children one day, if that chapter finds its way into my book. Right now, however, I have more than enough Gay Uncle duties to keep up with. Between a teenage nephew on the island, baby Jack Danger turning two and my sister pregnant in New Zealand, I am doing as much parenting as I can handle. Which is not much, but just enough.

As the sun begins to set, I must bid you adieu for now. The soup is ready, my coffee cup is empty, and my fingers are tapped out.