If I look back to a year ago, I find that I spent my 40th birthday rehearsing for a music gig. On the last day of my 40th year, I spent the evening playing a gig with that same group of friends and co-conspirators, this time in the upstairs community space at a pretty neat comic shop in Norfolk VA for a large and appreciative audience. Not a bad way to close out a year.

Sure, a good bit of the remaining 364 days were full of stress and angst, mostly owing to the new job I started in January. I’ll be honest, I’m still not over that stress; eight months in, I’m still figuring out how to be the guy I was supposedly hired to be (especially since the last guy didn’t do so great a job in leaving things in anything resembling a turn-key condition). I’m really thankful for the opportunities I get to go out and make music and make people’s lives a little more enjoyable – we have friends, and dare I say it, fans, who really look forward to the noises we make, and as much as an introvert as I am, I enjoy the hell out of it, getting to make music and make people happy through that making. I don’t think I can ever say it enough, how much I really appreciate Scott and Kirsten for generously letting me into their little musical family and making me feel so welcome.

I spent my actual birthday kind of wallowing in an unfocused melancholy for some reason…might just have been coming down from having a good time playing music, could be generalized anxiety over going to work on Monday, could be something else entirely; I just go there sometimes; I think it has to do with coming to terms with being an actual grown-up with responsibilities but really just wanting to go off and play.

Ahh, midlife crisis, you kind of snuck up on me.