Looking Ahead

When you turn 63, it's funny what you consider to be a great gift.

For me -- other than relative peace and harmony in a house filled now with four adults -- it was a special compression lower-back brace that would provide all the right support in the right spot when I pedaled, paddled or did some other kind of PT. When I strapped that baby on, I just about sighed.

Once I really start paddling again -- I thought as I eased my way along the Rapidan River -- that brace will make quite the difference.

So, yes, even at 63, I keep thinking of the things I'm gonna do. I guess you really never stop doing that, I certainly don't.

Truth is, I never thought I'd still be alive now. None of my friends back in high school thought we would live longer than 21, if that.

I turned 21 in Australia, and that age is a very big deal in Oz. Your mates and heaps of people you've just met buy you yards of beer to chug. My mates took me skiing for my birthday -- it being winter in Australia in July -- and when the pubs closed my one cohort, a rock-climber, scaled the side of a building and grabbed a table and chairs from an outside terrace and we set up shop on the sidewalk below, singing songs and laughing loudly. Others -- strangers -- joined us. The owner of the building wound up joining too and invited me to come inside to ring up my mom.

The celebration was a bit different this year. The family took me down to a restaurant on the river and I carried in a small thermos that contained a bit of coke and rum that my daughter had bought me for my birthday. You know you're old, in a good way, when your kids are buying you the booze.

I put the thermos down on the table at a spot that was halfway between the missus and me. Our server came over a minute later and, looking right at my wife, told her, "I'm sorry but by law you can't have that on the table. You'll have to put it on the floor."

My missus shot me a look that said Thanks a lot, Mr Uncouth. I just had to laugh.

Believe it not, I value this year's quiet meal more than the Australian chaotic melee. I enjoyed being with my Australian mates -- but I loved being with my family. Being with them was the best present of all.

Back when I was 21, I had a lifetime in front of me -- but I really didn't appreciate what that meant.

Now, at 63, I appreciate the lifetime I have left. What's more, I'm looking forward to living it. I’m looking ahead, not behind.

I can't wait to strap on that new back brace and embrace all that's yet to come.