Rounding 60

I am occasionally asked, “How do you do it? Full-time corporate media executive? Part time rock star? Sometimes teacher? Marathoner? Triathlete? Blogger? Adoring uncle?” And I appreciate the compliment.

Part of it is just my obsessive-compulsive, hyper-maniacal nature. Part of it is making up for lost time, and making the most of time left. And part of it is that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

My mother visited Communist China three weeks after Tiananmen Square. She has two master’s degrees (nursing education and theology). She runs her own business. She recently gutted and fused two Upper West Side apartments into one. Within the last year, she’s traveled extensively in Spain, France, and St. Barth’s. She’s going to Turkey next month. She’s taking a creative writing class at NYU. She ran her first half marathon, and first triathlon, within the last six months. She blogs. And she’s an adoring grandmother.

Most of all, my mother has encouraged me since I was a little boy to be creatively and existentially curious, to push the edges of my own personal boundaries, and to be the best man that I can be.

Today is my mother’s 60th birthday. I can only hope that, if I make it to sixty-years-old, I’m half as adventurous, half as accomplished, and half as existentially curious.

Happy Birthday, Mom. And thanks.