i really do want to grow up. i mean, i'm 49, i'll be 50 this october, growing up seems like something i ought to be getting around to. and i've already done so many of the things associated with growing up. i finished high school, spent four years in the air force, lived in england, went to college (4 times, 3 schools, 1 degree), had kids, got married, got divorced, had a job or twenty, voted, did legal stuff, saw Fernando pitch, and said goodbye to my mom last July. that's a lot of stuff, and not even the half of it. i've been alive, i've filled space and taken time and been around, so, hell, why not. grow up.

the only trouble is, i have no idea what that means. i know that i've done all the responsible adult stuff, and i've even done much of it responsibly, but that's not growing up. it's doing responsible adult stuff, and you can go through the motions with most of it (just ask the president). i stop and let myself feel who i am, and the last thing i feel is grown up. i tell myself "you are 49, you are turning 50 soon" and it makes no sense. i cannot see how that is true. yes, i was born in 1956 and this year is 2006 and i can do the goddamn math. i lived all these years, and i did all that stuff, and i feel like it must surely be my 16th birthday soon. perhaps 17th. that's how grown-up i feel.

the hardest part of this is that i am pretty sure i know what the answer is. i know what will make me feel grown-up, and that's to live my life right. i have yet to do that. going into the air force was not right. getting married was not right (god bless 20-20 hindsight for giving us the grace of perfect knowledge). every single job i've ever had was wrong, absolutely wrong. my college major was wrong, my grad school choice was wrong, and the reason i have no career is that i have been doing all the wrong things. and when i try to delude myself that starting a business and not actually working for someone else would make things right, it won't as long as that business has me doing the wrong things. making websites is not a career or a business for me; it's a hobby, a way to help other people get important things done. but it's not a career, and not just because the tech part is so frikkin' hard for me.

the only thing that is right for me, of course, is to write. easier said than done, but true nonetheless. until i put everything else in second place, nothing will be right. until i get over the self-imposed stigma of "writing" – that i'm not talented enough or good enough to be a writer – not only will i not have the only career of which i am capable, i will be a child. writing is not a foolish thing for me; it's mature. it's the grown-up thing. it will age me many years, and then it will give me even more to enjoy.