OBSERVATIONS ON TURNING 40

Today I turn 40. I guess it’s a milestone, or a reason to celebrate. It’s also a fact of life, I mean, after 39 comes 40. Now, before anyone thinks I’m sitting in front of my laptop writing observations instead of celebrating there are actually some positives to technology. I scheduled these observations to post on my birthday at a specific time. At the moment, I’m in Northern Spain (hopefully it’s sunny) relaxing (or recovering) and enjoying the company of good friends and gearing up for the next 40 years. There are a few things I’ve observed in my time on earth. These observations might only be particular to me, but these are things I’ve noticed…

I don’t look 40. Now, I only say that with only a PINCH of ego. Yeah yeah “black don’t crack”. But I REALLY don’t look 40. I recently got a tattoo from one of the top tattoo artists in China. He doesn’t speak a word of English and everything had to go through his interpreter. They pointed out that two of my tattoos were fading. I explained that it’s normal for tattoos to fade after 20 years. There response was, “Are you Asian?” Confused I asked them to explain. They said I must be Asian to look so young. I admit it made me feel good. Who doesn’t like to hear compliments like that! After the tattoo the artist said it was a pleasure to tattoo someone with such healthy skin. My first observation is on why I think I look young for my age.

No kids. Hey, I love kids. Even though I’m now 40 I still hope to meet someone not too opposed to bearing the child of a middle-aged man. As much as children bring laughter and joy everyone knows they also cause stress. It’s a proven fact that stress ages the body. I am only concerned with feeding, clothing and caring for myself. I have eaten cereal for breakfast, lunch, dinner AND snack on more than a few occasions. I once wore the same pair of socks for a week straight without washing them. Ok, I was traveling around Central America and lost my other pairs but still. Try having a 6 year wear the same pair of socks that long. I only have to worry about myself and sometimes I mess that up! I know how much stress I caused my mother. I was devious and asked questions non-stop. How she worked a full time job, dealt with a husband and took care of house and home without swinging me around by my feet above her head like a helicopter to get me to shut up I don’t know. Point is, I stressed her. Now my mom looks great for her age, but if she didn’t have 4 kids she’d be running around here looking like she’s 35.

I’ve lived in many different countries and overall my stress level in foreign countries for 11 months equals the stress I experience being in the US for one. I worry less about what’s in my food outside of the USA. Big difference only needing to check the sugar and fat content of food and not if it’s been genetically modified or sprayed with pesticides or even real. I eat way less meat and smaller portions which in turn makes me healthier. I also snack less being outside the US, unless it’s cereal. Another thing that makes me healthier? Vacations! We don’t vacation in the United States. Loading up your bad a$$ kids and driving 10 hours straight to visit your parents for a 3 day weekend is not a vacation! When Europeans take a break from work, they BREEAAK! Work is the last thing on their mind for 5 weeks. FIVE WEEKS! My American butt thought that was ridiculous until I moved to Europe and actually started vacationing. Talk about wiping the slate clean and recharging your batteries, whew! But the biggest factor that keeps me looking youthful from not living in the US is being alive. Real talk. I go to a movie theater in Europe my biggest concern is if I’ll need to use the bathroom halfway through, not if a person will walk in and start shooting. Matter of fact, everywhere I go in Europe I know the only people who will have guns are the police. That is a beautiful thing! Oh, and police don’t use black people for target practice in Europe. Yeah, that also keeps a brother looking young.  Ducking and dodging bullets ages a person! In saying that, I still have a sh!t ton of gray hair!

Which leads me to my second observation of turning 40. Women LOVE a man with a bit of gray. When I was in my 20’s I didn’t get why women my own age were all into men so much older than them. I mean, a man in his 20’s is normally in better shape, has more hair, more energy, more sexual stamina, and blah blah blah. Now that I’m 40 there are women who when I was 25 I would’ve had to put in WORK for are stepping to me. Being in your late 30’s and early 40’s for a man with some gray is not a bad place to be. I don’t know if they assume older man more money? Which makes no sense in Berlin since no one has any money here. Or older man more likely to be ready to settle down? Older men don’t chase it so we’re more of a challenge? No idea. I just know I ain’t mad!

A very very real thing I have noticed is the beginning of physical deterioration. Every time I hear someone who is 40+ talk about being just as good as they were 10 years ago I want to slap them in the face and yell “Snap out of it man! For the love of God wake up!” It’s called reality people. How many professional athletes are still playing at 40 years old? There might be one or two exceptions but for the most part there are none. And if they are out there they aren’t at the top of their game. I feel it when I work out. Every 6 weeks I need to change up my workouts to low impact body weight things to give my joints a rest. In my 20’s I could go two weeks without working out and eat like I was a prison inmate getting his last meal and not look any different. If I go three days now without working out and don’t have a strict healthy diet, I look like I came from a frat party where I played 12 hours of beer pong straight. Just the way it is. I know I can push myself to be in the best possible shape I can be in now, and it won’t match my physical highs of 10 years ago. Case in point, a couple of weeks ago I started a new workout that calls for me to do explosive vertical jumps. That’s simply jumping as high as you can, nothing more. But think about it, when is the last time you’ve jumped as HIGH as you can? Why would you? So I jumped. Now, when I was 13 years old I won silver in the AAU Jr. Olympics in the long jump. I jumped 20ft (6 meters). Where I'm from we call that hops. I could fly. COULD people, remember that. Spiritually I touched the moon on that first vertical jump. My soul soared and was like “Wahooooooo!”. In reality it was more like, “Wa!” cause I came back to earth so fast. My spirit hit its head on the roof of my skull from that rapid decent. I clicked my teeth I hit the ground so hard. My brain was like a woman who is celibate for years then finally decides to have sex and the man lasts like 3 strokes, “Is that all? Are you seriously telling me that’s all? I coulda kept my clothes on for that mess.” My physical body was like the man, “I don’t know what happened! This has never happened before! Let me try again!”. At that moment I perfectly understood the saying, mind is willing but the body isn’t able. You know what? I’m perfectly OK with that. Before I worked out to set personal bests in the gym. When I was 25 I weighed 170lbs (77kg) and benched 385lbs (175kg). Now I work out to look good naked. I honestly have no idea how much I can bench press and I could give two sh!ts. My tattoos are still in the same places now as they were 20 years ago and women still stare at my butt when I wear fitted pants. THAT is my measuring stick now. Now on the mental level?? TOTALLY different story! But for the physical? Yeah, I feel it. Extra 15 minutes for warmup before I work out, taking random days off to recover and  joint pain after walking up 5 flights of stairs is my life at 40.

I’m 40 and not married, never been married and from the first observation obviously childless. My past relationships failed for a number of reasons, admittedly mostly due to this. But I at least was smart enough to pick up a few things that at 40 I believe I’ve finally figured out. In my opinion there are 4 pillars of attraction to a successful relationship. They are Physical, Intellectual, Spiritual and Emotional. If you don’t have at least three of those things your relationship will tip over and crash. With only two you might be able to balance things for a while, but you won’t have a sturdy foundation to see you through the tough times. Yes, looks are going to fade, but you can’t see someone’s kindness and compassion across the street. It’s the first thing we see and it’s nice to have. One of my favorite things, right up there with cake, is to be in a shop or bookstore and see an attractive woman out the corner of your eye and think, “Daaaamn!!!” Then that woman walks your way and you puff out your chest and suck in your gut and you realize it’s your girlfriend. Then you get all happy cause you are like, “She’s with me!?! I get to see her naked!!” Physical attraction, helping people want to make babies since forever.

Intellectual for me is HUGE! And a sidebar observation, folks these days have forgotten what intellectual conversation means. Hell! People don’t even KNOW what conversation means! Conversation is a form of talking. Talking refers to a conversational exchange. Telling is used to inform or instruct. Talking is not the same as telling. When people talk they EXCHANGE ideas. Telling is when you provide information and is a one-way street. If you are always telling your significant other things you are not creating the environment for you two to learn more about each other and expand the boundaries of your intellectual capacity. There are only so many times someone can tell me about their day or what so and so did before I get bored. But if someone talks to me about the organizational structure of their job and how it prevents them from growing in a professional capacity or the behavioral basis for why people act a certain way I’m down like four flat tires to do that for hours. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds events; small minds discuss people.” People don’t talk as much as they did 10 or 20 years ago. There are enough posts about that due to a number of factors, but I definitely notice it as I get older on a personal level. Communication is the key in relationships and that entails talking, posting Facebook memes does not count! If you’ve been dating someone for months and you don’t know their views on politics, religion, relationships, sex, extraterrestrial life, Marvel vs DC Comics and sweet vs savory… you are missing one of those 4 pillars. And books, if a person doesn’t have books in their apartment or house, run. Quickly. And don’t stop until you can't hear their cries of “where are you going?!?”. Books provide so much fuel for great conversations I can’t see meaningful conversation without them.

Spiritual and Emotional are connected in many ways. A couple on some level should believe there is a higher power that brought them together. I know it sounds hokey but these are MY observations. I just believe when people act like there was a cosmic design to bring you together you appreciate what you have a bit more.  Hopefully you explore it and strive to comprehend it on a deeper and more fulfilling level which leads to a stronger emotional bond. If you’re with someone only because they have the right family name or enough zeroes in their salary, then your spiritual and emotional connection is weak. You're also not going to be interested in a more profound relationship either that works toward enlightening your spirits and strengthening your emotional bonds.

Ok, so in theory relationships lead to marriage and I am at that age now where a lot of first marriages are ending and second marriages are beginning. Lord knows as someone who has never been married I have no idea what it takes to be happily married or have a happy marriage. I have however observed enough relationships and marriages to have an opinion. Marry your first love or wait until you are as close to 40 as possible. Now, some people might read first love and imagine their first boyfriend or girlfriend and say, “Nooo way!”. I would have to agree. My first REAL girlfriend eventually became my fiancé. What a disaster that was! Best thing that ever happened was me not marrying that woman. After her though I met my first love. Oh that experience...Yeah, that experience went on to shape a significant portion of my life and put a permanent stamp on my definition of love itself. Your first love is pure and untainted. You only know endless possibilities and haven’t experienced heartbreak to be distrustful. You follow impulses and desire and treat every single moment as a treasure with no regard to the consequences. You love as if you will never be hurt and never doubt the source of your love and more importantly, theirs. There is no word in any language to describe a first love. It is an authentic force that never dies, it is only altered and continues to evolve for all of eternity. It’s never ever a mistake to dive into that love at the first opportunity and swim in it for as long as you can.

If by chance you don’t get that opportunity, wait. Again, these are my observations. In my late 20’s I felt an obligation to get married which is much stronger in certain cultures than others but still very prevalent. When your heart is clouded by the weight of expectations  it’s always best to wait until you can hear it more clearly. For me it’s as I’ve moved closer to 40. I’ve moved past a lot of insecurity and dealt with a lot of emotional issues that kept me from being able to truly commit to a person in a healthy relationship. I had to unlearn some harmful habits andstart trusting the voice of my heart again. A long and painful process but very necessary part of my journey. I’m not saying I’m 100% ready, but I am much closer today than I was yesterday and certainly more so than I was 10 years ago. My level of appreciation for someone who can not only put up with my scars but love me not in spite of them, but because of them is infinite now.  And that’s how I feel about that.

My final observation on turning 40 is getting older makes you long-winded! But hey, you can always stop reading! So, I've noticed that your circle of friends shrinks. As you get older the number of people you consider to be friends grows smaller. That is for a number of reasons and everyone has different ones. For me I realized that often times the people I thought were my friends were people who were cool to go out and party with. Not the same as being someone I could turn to when I felt lost and needed a steadying hand. I also confused someone being friendly with being my friend. A conversation I had with a very wise woman set me straight on that a few years ago. The gist of the conversation was that I was wrong in assuming I had a lot of female friends. She had one simple test for me when a female who I hadn’t spoken to in a long time tried to reconnect, ask if they were single. She explained that more often than not a woman reaching out to me was because she was currently or recently single and wanted to gauge the possibility of us RECONNECTING (nudge nudge wink wink). She was right. At my age the people who want to communicate with me I really like and I believe the feeling is mutual. There is no hidden agenda and they have my best interest at heart. That makes our interaction very… reassuring. compared to my 20's, I interact with much fewer people. I'm OK with that. The ones who are in my life now are meant to be there and even if our interaction is brief it's still extremely special to me. It has more impact and value. 

Ok, my last observation of turning 40.. Hey! My birthday, my observations, my rules. So

two last observations! Family. Family gets more important and you miss them more as you get older. You may have your differences with your family but you’ve never heard anyone saying that’s my ex-brother or my ex-cousin. You will always be family and there is something powerful and special in that. You share a bond with those people that goes back generations of a lot of different factors coming into play that produced that blood. With my family I am now Jesus. Not saying I’m turning water into wine or raising the dead! More like the forgiving part. Believe it was 7x70? In other words, people make mistakes and family should always get extra leeway. And I live in Berlin so I miss a lot of their mistakes also, easier to forgive what you don't know about! Ha! 

Yeah, that’s enough. Now back to my scheduled 40^th birthday celebration in Spain. It’s been a FUNomenal journey so far and I am looking forward to what the future brings. Hopefully some cake... *sigh I really love cake. 

OBSERVATIONS ON KIDS

First things first, I don’t have any children of my own. I have one adorable niece who I don’t get to see nearly enough and that’s pretty much it. Why am I qualified to write these observations? Because for the past 12 years I’ve worked at residential summer camps and/or taught English to children. I think that gives me a world of experience and information to tell you about these little rug rats! Also, parents, hear me out. Let’s take a normal week for you if you have kids.. You wake up early, get the kids ready then take them to school where they proceed to spend the next 7 hours with someone else. When you get back home, they are doing homework, going to some type of practice for something and then it’s bedtime. For 5 days during the week a stranger has more interaction with your kids then you do .On the weekend, your kids are playing PS2, going to athletic games and spending the night over at friends. Throw in the parents that send their kids to residential summer camps where a stranger is responsible for your child 24/7 sometimes up to 8 weeks and you can see how some parents don’t really spend that much time with their kids. Well I’m that stranger and this is what I have observed about your kids.

 

1.)    How is it, that we think small kids are so fragile and we are always worried about their safety? The toughest people I have ever been around are not Rugby players, it’s not American football players or security guards at night clubs. The toughest people I have seen are 4 year olds. Oh, it’s the truth. I have seen a kid run full steam into a wall, bounce off, hit his head on the ground, so a double impact, get up, look around, saw there wasn’t an adult to get sympathy from then keep on going. They put their bodies through things that aren’t normal! Forget the mafia, you don’t like someone, round up like 4 or 5 six year olds from your neighborhood, tell them you will buy them all an ice cream cone (A positive, lil kids come cheap) and tell them to “Get him/her”. That’s all you have to say, “Get him/her.” They’ll take care of the rest. They will chase that poor person down like a pack of Hyenas after a wounded Zebra. They don’t get tired!! I’m vindictive. Yeah that’s right, I admit it. Worked at a summer camp and someone messed around stole one of my favorite shirts out of the laundry room. THEN the dumbass had the nerve to wear my shirt around the camp!! I played it cool….Rounded up some little campers and said “GET HIM!” Got his ass they did. They just kept chasing him! This guy was an All-American Cross Country runner from Oregon. He put distance between himself and them, but they never stopped coming. He would stop to eat lunch…they wouldn’t. He would stop to use the toilet…they WOULDN’T! They chased his ass the entire summer. He kept on making the mistake thinking that he would stop and confront them..They whooped his ass! He tried to fight them off, but their indestructible! Maybe it’s all the flexibility they have or something. I almost felt bad for the man.

 

2.)    That leads me into my second observation…Humans are animals. Why would I say that? Cause look at kids. People always talk about how innocent kids are, how sweet and pure they are and that they have to be taught hate and to be racists. Maybe…but kids have NO sympathy. NONE! When they caught said person from the first observation they showed no mercy on his ass. They were grabbin’ testicals, bitin’ Achilles heels, throwin’ rocks, they didn’t care. I remember once way back in the day playin around with my lil brother. We were playin Cops and Robbers. I pretended my brother shot me and I had died. Ok, I don’t know what Police detective shows he had been watchin, but in the ones I remember seeing, they don’t kick the bad guy in the nuts when he’s already dead! I asked him why, he said, cause I was dead. Cause I was dead??? Explain that please someone. Dead means leave them alone to me, but to a kid it means kick him in the nuts? Then again, maybe that’s a good way to tell if the person is fakin or not. Do not play dead around little kids. I repeat, DO NOT PLAY DEAD AROUND LITTLE KIDS! I’ve had Tonka Trucks shoved up my nostrils, one kid tried to see how far down he could pull my lip…One real cute little girl opened up my eye and spit in it! Lil Heffa! Think about it, they tell you to play dead around Bears for Pete’s sake! Bears are wild animals that respect the dead, little kids don’t! You better off locking yourself in a closet and waiting it out until their nap time to escape.

 

3.)    Has anyone ever tried feeding vegetables to a 3 year old? They act like you are trying to feed them shit on a stick. HOWEVER, take your child to the park, and on his own, if he finds shit on a stick, more than likely he will put it in his mouth. THAT one I don’t get about kids. They will put God knows what in their mouths but won’t eat proper food at the dinner table. I’ve seen kids put in their mouths, a live moth, a pen used to move around a dead bird, fingers after scratching the crack of their ass, boogers, someone else’s boogers, glue, scotch tape off the back of a picture hanging up for 3 years, water from the toilet, etc, etc. You get my point. They say Crocodiles have the worst non-venomous bite because of how dirty their mouths are Hhhmm…..I wonder where lil kids rank on that list. Yet, when was the last time any of you kissed a crocodile in the mouth compared to a lil kid?

 

4.)    There are very few things left in this world that are impossible. Man has gone to the moon, we have cured a host of diseases, travel faster than the speed of sound and the list goes on and on. The one thing that in my opinion is impossible, I mean IMPOSSIBLE is keeping kids clean. I mean don’t even try it’s so impossible. Seems like I always get stuck with the kids on art day. And of course art day always includes paint on my watch. I know it’s a conspiracy! Bunch of white men standing around thinking of ways to get back at black men for datin’ their women!!! “Now what can we do to get back at those damn negros???”  “I know!! Give him about ten 7 yr olds and bottles of paint to paint pictures and tell him he can’t let them make a mess!” “Oh that’s just Evil Vern…But I like it!” I have covered a classroom in huge sheets of paper thinking WHEN, not if, but WHEN paint was spilled it would get on the paper and not the walls, desks, etc. Nope, didn’t help a bit. I don’t know how it happened but paint ended up everywhere. Parents know this also. How many times have you gotten your kid ready to go somewhere nice, sat them in front of the TV so you could change, come back and your child hasn’t moved but is dirty? Children have an intimate relationship with dirt. It’s like a virus and a host; one needs the other to survive. I just haven’t figured out yet if the kids or the dirt are the virus. You know what? Forget prison. Seriously, just forget all about that money we are wasting on prisons. Start a program where a prisoner is responsible for about ten 5 yr olds, put them in a perfectly white room with bottles of paint. Tell the prisoners if he can have them finish an art project and the room is clean after an hour, he can go free, an exercise in futility. It would never happen, but you’d make the prisoners go mad trying not to let it happen. More effective than solitary confinement I promise you that.

 

5.)    Most companies have to test their products under the most extreme conditions to have an idea of its durability and service life. The Army sends equipment to the desert or the Artic circle, bed companies have huge rollers that press their mattresses for days and days on end; you get the idea. Forget all of that. I’m not impressed in the least. You want to test something, go into any classroom in the world, put it in the middle of the room then just close the door. I figure about an hour will be long enough. Yes, that’s it, an hour. One kid, on their own, is a destructive force equal to a Tropical Storm. A CLASSROOM full of kids??? Oh please, it better be the best manufactured item on the planet. Children can figure out new never before conceived ways to destroy, hide and fuck things up. That report you’ve been working on for a week to present the next morning? I bet you in 5 minutes on your computer your son or daughter can hide it so well that if you run a search on it, your search engine will come back, Shrug it’s shoulders and say, “Beats me, I can’t find that Muthafugga.” Or they will change the font to ancient Sand script so no one alive can translate the document. I remember once, my dad bought this synthesizer. It was one of the more upscale ones cause it had like 100 different type sounds it could reproduce, from instruments to nature sounds it had it all. Up comes my little brother..oh yes, the same little brother and he starts playing on it. Do you know in about 11 minutes he had the thing speaking in tongues? I hid in the closet for almost a hour thinking the Exorcist was in the house. I’m just sweatin in a small cramped space about to die from a heat stroke cause outside I hear, “We goin’ eat yo aaaaaaaaaaaass!! Eat, eat, eat yo aaaaaaaaaaaaaass.” He had reprogrammed the damn thing to make mimic demonic voices. I passed out from the heat in the closet. You know who found me? My little brother, saw me laying there so he thought I was dead…..Yep, lil bastard kicked me in the nuts! Give it to kids if you want to find the threshold of a products durability. In addition, to find out what things can be done with it you didn’t even consider. VCR’s?? They are pretty much obsolete now, but did you know that they are also good for putting peanut butter & jelly sandwiches while you go outside to play? MP3 players make great battleships in the bathtub and a computer mouse makes the best sling shot type weapons.

 

 

6.)    This next observation is more so on the PARENTS of children as apposed to the children themselves. Now, I am at that age where a lot of my friends are starting to settle down and have kids. I’m starting to see this next observation up close and personal. Not all parents suffer from this, but most of you do and someone needs to set you straight! If as a parent, you are not cute, athletic or in general don’t have any talent….chances are your kids are going to be ugly, clumsy and boring just like you are. I’m sorry, I’m just going on facts. It’s called genetics and it’s a MF, but we all have to live with them. Whitney Houston is a crackhead, we all know this, but it doesn’t change the fact that she is a very good singer. You know what? So is her mother. Her mother is a very popular Gospel singer; hence the genes being passed down that Whitney can blow. Michael Jordan? His father was an above average athlete so you see the genetics coming into play once again. Reality check people! If you were the last picked for all the kickball games when you were growing up…chances are it’s not because your kid isn’t liked, it’s because he plays like he’s retarded…JUST LIKE YOU DID. Your daughter didn’t make it past the auditions for Kids American Idol? Record yourself singing and if glasses crack and dogs join in?? It’s your fault! You gave her those singing genes. Your kid is trying to beat up his own reflection on the mirror. I seriously doubt he will be winning the Nobel Peace Prize for Chemistry. Ok, ok, sometimes you get mutations that can’t be explained. We all know the ugly parents with the cutest kids, or the bookish parents who have kids that are All-Star athletes….In saying that though, did you know that 1 in 5 kids men don’t belong to you?? It’s a proven fact, so remember that when you are questioning where your son gets his mathematical prowess from when you flunked remedial math..TWICE!. I think that’s why designer babies are taking off now. People are trying to play God cause deep down they know they are fucked up in some way and are afraid to pass on that deficiency to their offspring. They want to end that gene for eyes too close together with them.

 

7.)    My last observation of kids and anyone who has them, or worked with them will have to agree. Children will make you more upset than you have ever been in your life…I mean you’ll start to stutter you are so pissed off, see double from all the blood rushing to your head, look through the phone book for an agency to put them up for adoption and want to just get in your car, drive off and never come back! But, if they come up to you and give you one hug, or tell you they love you, or smile at you…You melt and you realize, they aren’t all so bad…Unless you play dead around them!!!