Skip to main content

34

i turn 34 today.  birthdays just don't feel as significant to me as they once did.  i remember the days when you turned 15 and that felt important.  and then the next year 16 felt monumental.  not long after that was 18, then 20, then 21, and then things started to slow down a bit.  after i went over the hill at 30, i began to lose track. 

one of the young people in our youth group asked me last week how old i would be today and i honestly had to stop and think about it.  this is nothing new for me, as i have regularly forgotten my age in the last few years, but the youth at the gathering were really taken aback by this.  "how can you not know how old you are?" they teased.  and it's a legitimate question, but i guess it just doesn't matter as much any more.  what's the difference between 33 and 34, or even 37, other than their relative distance to 30 and 40 respectively?  not much, it seems to me.  just mile markers along the way on a journey to no particular destination.  and that is really the point, isn't it?  it's not about the destination. 

when i am driving, i am a furious mile counter.  when i finally arrive somewhere after a long drive i usually am exhausted not so much from paying attention to the road but from counting miles and constantly figuring and refiguring the time it will take to get wherever i am going.  my mind is constantly at work.  i'm figuring things like "average speed," and how fast i have to go for how many minutes in order to raise that figure, and so forth.  even though i am not a mathematician in any sense of the word, i find i have this insatiable desire to countdown towards my destination when i want to get somewhere. 

but that isn't true of life, at least not for me.  see, here i am: the obsessive compulsive mile counter doesn't even know how old he is!  am i an enigma?  yes, but that's beside the point.  the truth is that i have wholly and completely learned to rest in the truth that life is not about the destination.  i'm not counting miles becuase i'm not too concerned about where i'm going.  in all truth, i have no idea where i'm going!  (i often remember the little axiom that if you want to make God laugh, tell God your 10-year plan).  what i DO know is where i am, and, what's more, the incredibly rich community that journeys with me.  i may have to do some subtracting to figure out how old i am, but i need to do some heavy multiplication to count my blessings.  and ultimately, that is where the great gift of life lies for me: not in the things i pass along the way, but in the ones who go that way alongside me.  that is my joy.  you are my celebration.  thank you. 

Comments

Emoly said…
I wonder if Shannon made you some giant creation of a cake if that would help you remember your birthdays.

"Remember that birthday when we had the giant earthworm cake?

Yeah, Greg turned 34 that year.

Are you sure that wasn't Jack's birthday?

No. Jack had the dinosaur cake that year."

maybe that dialog was funnier in my head...

happy birthday greg!!! I hope you have a wonderful and blessed day.
greg milinovich said…
are you kidding? she made me an awesome ipod cake last year? still doesn't help me remember how old i am!
greg milinovich said…
http://agentorangerecords.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-33rd-birthday-to-me.html cake here
cathyq said…
You are such a Milinovich!

Popular posts from this blog

bad haircuts (for a laugh)

everybody needs to laugh.  one good way i have found to make that happen is to do a simple google image search for 'bad haircut.'  when you do so, some of the following gems show up.  thankfully, my 9th grade school picture does NOT show up.  otherwise, it would certianly make this list!  please laugh freely and without inhibition.  thank you and have a nice day. 

happiness is dry underwear

we started potty training jack on thursday. we followed a program called POTTY TRAIN IN ONE DAY, which, by the way, i think is kind of crazy. i mean, if someone were to offer you a book called, "ACHIEVE WORLD PEACE IN ONE DAY" i don't think you would take it seriously. and yet here we are, trying to accomplish an equally daunting task in one 24-hour period. it is intense. the day is shrouded in a lie because as soon as your happily diapered child wakes up you tell him that it is a big party. we had balloons and streamers and noisemakers and silly string - all the trappings of a legitimate party. but it is most certainly not a party. it is a hellishly exhausting day. as soon as jack got out of bed, we gave him a present: an anatomically correct doll that wets himself. jack named him quincy. several times quincy successfully peed in the potty and even had an accident or two in his "big boy underwear." he also dropped a deuce that looked and smelled sus

the crucifixion of Robert Lewis

  "the crucifixion of Robert Lewis" mixed media collage with leaves, acrylic paint, and found objects by gregory a milinovich october 2023 this october i was invited to participate in a three day trip which was called a "pilgrimage of pain and hope."  while that may not sound super exciting to many of you, it actually really intrigued me.  i am the kind of person that wants to feel big feelings, and i am drawn to the deep places, so  i was interested in traveling to the scranton area, where the trip was planned, to see what it might look like to be a pilgrim that was wide-eyed and listening to the pain and the hope in the stories of others.   this trip included hearing the stories of immigrants to the northeastern pennsylvania area, and the work in the coal mines that many of them did.  it included hearing from folks who are working for housing justice and equity in downtown scranton.  it included hearing from those indigenous people who first inhabited that land.