Whew.

Truly – those last couple of months in my 41st year were something else. Today, I turned 42. The sound, the look, the mathematical relationship between the two numbers, its billing as the answer to the ultimate question, I like 42. I’m looking forward to 42.

And I feel a sense of relief in having reached my birthday. With the surgery and the fainting, and my own sense of needing to do more so that loved ones will feel loved by me, the last 1/6th of being 41 was heavy. The surgery recovery seems to have gone fine and only have the slightest of pain in my ribs. Not bad for 4 weeks out from fainting onto the edge of a bathtub.

The sense of needing to do more for my loved ones? That’s going to take some time. There is a moment at the beginning of an episode of my Jenkins and Alfred podcast where Alfred is freaking out because he worries he hasn’t done enough at Christmas to let his loved ones know how much he loves them. That’s me. All the time.

And from December 25th through March 2nd, we have Christmas, an anniversary, and 2 birthdays (my own included) that have me constantly freaking out. Did I plan something that they will actually like? What can I choose that others will be happy about? Did I get as much as I could from their Christmas lists without getting ourselves into a homeless situation?

I’m still not sure where all of this comes from. But I usually feel that I’m not doing a good job at being a [fill in the blank]. And so when we get through this gauntlet of celebrations, I relax a bit. And the pressure I put on myself takes a back seat to other things. And I know, at some level, that I don’t need to be this way about these events. That it takes something away from what is meant to be a joyful and celebratory time. I am working on it.

I’ll try to be better.