Growing Up

I'm turning forty in two months and most of me doesn't give a shit. At times, though, I'm surrounded by reminders of how much more quickly the years pass. Two days ago, my fourteenth wedding anniversary. Three days ago, giving a presentation at New Faculty Orientation I realized that September marks the start of my ninth year at UM-Dearborn. That night, dinner with old friends from the seminary who I've known twenty-five years, and we reminisced about people and events I hadn't thought about in at least two decades. The melancholy music of The Smiths has soundtracked the last few weeks, mainly because of the discovery of this, but the sardonic humor and the sentimental snark of their lyrics has been a good fit for the tiny part of me that does give a shit about the imminent onset of forty. Oh, and I reckon I've been listening to The Smiths for about twenty-seven years.