I just returned from a brunch at Evins Mill to celebrate a milestone occasion - the Inn's fifteenth year of being in business. Commemorating longevity or tenure, milestones almost always arrive in multiples of five or ten. To wit, there's little fan fair when someone turns twenty-seven. Conversely, there are established rules as to the gifts husbands should give their wives on decadal anniversaries. Who made these rules and on what basis? No doubt some cultural maven for quite nonsensical reasons.~
Who's to tell me I cannot give my spouse a Pez dispenser on our tenth and an obscenely large diamond ring on our eleventh? Only my wallet and wife. Capricious or not, these existential markers lead the contemplative among us to bouts of retrospection, wherein we examine the assets and liabilities of our life’s balance sheet, assign values to both, and thereby ascertain, if you will, the equity of our existence. And as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am as much the bookkeeper as I am the brooder.
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And I've had much to contemplate lately - very soon I will have celebrated three milestones within the span of a year and a few months. Our own age is certainly the leading generator of milestones, and earlier last year, I turned forty. Unlike previous milestone birthdays, forty spawned a sobering acceptance – not so much about mortality as about aging. I consider myself young, but some others apparently think otherwise – a gentleman who I sized up as a contemporary, albeit a younger one, recently addressed me as “sir.”
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The bad news is that the furrows lining my brow are not transitory features resulting from momentary concern or deep thought but are permanent, and growing more conspicuous by the day – as are the crow’s feet assembling around my eyes. But all this is pure vanity - who knows what’s going on beneath the hood? The good news is that I've been blessed with unstintingly good health and remain hearty and hale as far as my physician can detect. And unlike some of my contemporaries with receding hair lines, my mane is replete, giving me a renewed appreciation for Sampson's plight.
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As noted above, I celebrated a second milestone this year – the birthday of Evins Mill, a business I started with my father fifteen years ago. The bad news, if it can be called that, is that I’ll never amass great wealth from the endeavor. It is also a capital intensive business, saddling me with more debt than may be wise for someone of my age or income bracket. The good news is that I am captain, and deck hand, of my own vessel, which though modest in scale is grand in design. And in an economy shedding jobs, that I have one is also good news - and not just a job, but an invigorating vision.
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The best news from Evins Mill - and an "asset" of incalcualable value on my life's balance sheet, sprouted from a chance encounter. I vividly remember meeting Eden there twelve years ago and being smitten with her long black hair and big blue eyes – along with some other fetching endowments. I soon fell in love with all of her and a year later proposed we spend the rest of our lives together. Earlier this month, we celebrated the most seminal of all three milestones this year – our tenth wedding anniversary.
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The bad news is that evolutionary biologists speculate that men and women are not ideally wired for monogamous relationships, and judging from the work, tendered with love I would add, required to nurture a healthy one, I suspect they may be onto something. The good news is that while not entirely without friction, our relationship remains vibrant and loving - to the extent I'm inclined to believe we will share many, many more milestones together.
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I use the word "share" rather than "celebrate," as some milestones will inevitably be somber. And to end on a realistic yet hopeful note, while it's unlikely we'll cross the finish line together, I can only hope we will both be available and adequately sentient to comfort one another as we near that most final of milestones.
