Today I turned forty-eight.

I’m not big on birthdays, but this one was significant. It reminded me of when I was little, thinking about what it will be like to turn twenty-eight in the year 2000. I was probably ten the first time I thought of that date, seems like a million years ago.

Not that there was much thought back then, but in 1982 I was pretty much spot-on about my twenty-eight year-old self. By 2000 I still lived in Louisiana and was working in a profession that I had miraculously already decided upon. Seems like I nailed the big stuff, but boy was I wrong about the rest.

Twenty years later and my job is the only thing the same about me at Y2K — everything I decided after ten years old fell apart, including my first marriage and living situation.

Only in the last few years, since I stopped caring about appearances, did I manage to find some consistent happiness. Now I don’t really give a shit about anything, and I’m good with that. I guess that means I should have never been so goddamn ambitious in the first place. Or, who knows, maybe I just should have been more honest.