*Dedicated to a life taken too soon. May you forever rest in peace dear friend.

Okay, another birthday. A larger digit to add to the end of my 'age'. For someone born in a zero-ending year, the larger this digit, the closer the next milestone. Easy for loved ones to remember: Every zero-ending year, Elise has aged another decade.

Yet this has no meaning for me? I have no clue what I would answer were I to be asked how old "I felt". Some moments I am so bloody tired I feel I need one of those walkers? Other moments I am flying like a teen, fresh and full of ideas and curiosity. Or some hours find me at my peak, at my best, at my most supreme moments.

Got me thinking... What if we drew a line through what is our supposed life expectancy, somewhere in the middle? And what if from that point on we counted backwards? Let's pick 50, let's be centenarians for this (those very few of us over 50, the rest of you, read and learn I guess?

So on your supposed 51st birthday, you become 49 instead. Now, you've lived through 49 before, how was that year for you? Was it a good year, or a bad one? Was it so meh you don't remember a single thing in it? You want to live it all exactly the same again or do you want to maybe change some things... in hindsight?

What were you doing at 49? Who were you with? What were you thinking and feeling? What were you saying? Was it a decent year for you or could it have turned out better if you'd only... see what I mean? Looking in hindsight, you learned things that particular year; some through solving mistakes of years past and some by making new mistakes.

So let's go back to 49 and fix the sucker up? Do the things you promised you would and didn't. Trust your instinct when you should. Change opinions, change answers to questions, change responses to others' moods and happenstances, change every bloody thing you would not have done and said, knowing ahead the consequences.

Live 49 again, but do it right this time. How good is that huh? The possibilities, the again-open doors, the wonder of it all! Then... continue to do the same for the next birthday and the next. Go back, relive, and appreciate all the benefits of hindsight. Live again! Live it over and... say hello to the stranger who caught your attention this time. Or walk the dog you bought in order to walk with a dog? Or finish that project you started, the book you never finished writing, the change in diet you have been putting off? Grasp at moments - previously lost moments - for they do recur; only you need to be open to seeing them?

Yes of course this is something between you and your mind; the body is out of it, continuing to age as the years pile on. And the greater your age, the less agility and therefore opportunity to relive some of the more uh... physical things? So you'd say all this is pointless, right? Viagra sure, but that's not going to help you hike up a hill or drag your overweight body down the street?

But then again, think back! Your body may have been capable but were you using it at its best? Were you treating it with reverence or were you abusing it as though it had no relevance to your future? And are you the same now? Still living on bad food and bad habits and bad behaviours? If you were, say, 39 again would you be gorging on fast-food breakfasts and stressing daily for extended hours at a job you hate, to have all the supposed things you are told you need... and worrying, always worrying about your 'life' and its direction? Would you be spending weekends on the couch with a bottle of booze and some take-out food 'to unwind' or would you be out there, seeing, being, living outside of your weekly grind? Would you exercise your body or spend more time numbing your mind? Would everything be a hurried taste because you simply had no time?

Fix it all! Get off the bloody couch and go and do and be! Challenge the 63 year old bones and the settled mind. To quote again Dylan's constant reminder to me, "Nothing is stopping you except yourself."

Oh and by the time you've regressed to nappies again and sometime drooling and needing mobility aids to get around, think of yourself as a toddler. Look at the old photos. Time to just be! Unlearning some things is no big deal. You have the memories. Only they're better now, you've done everything the best way you could? You may have aged somewhat unconventionally and perhaps at times disgracefully (acting 33 when you're 73 for instance) but by God, you've lived! You've tasted life twice, and the second time around it was so much sweeter, so much more satisfying, so much better! And maybe even longer? A lot longer because you adopted a new approach to prolonging your life?

Yeah, I kinda like this idea. I even did the exercise of writing out the numbers from one to a hundred to see where I'd be every future year and where I'm at now.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 2223 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 3435 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 5758 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

According to this, I turn 44 today (the 10th for those outside of Aus.) Oh... those were not the best of times for me! Forty four was the year before everything went ape-shit, the year when the choices I made robbed me of everything. I persevered with something I should have let go. I hung on to some other things too, falsely believing they were real. I formed some erroneous opinions and acted out some pretty bad decisions...

What about this year then? The year ahead stretches empty. I am now 44 again, but I can fix some things I did, say some other things I neglected to say, take back a few things I said? Live the year again but in hindsight... live it differently; the way I should have back then? Be more loving, less focussed on the self; give rather than take; act rather than expect others to instigate action; look ahead with hope rather than stay stuck in the moment due to fear.

Yep. Sounds good to me. Could well turn out to be an interesting year? Lose the stress and stop procrastinating is a good place to start methinks... Write down all the things I've neglected and bloody get them done, strike a line through each one. Listen to my gut instinct and don't try to excuse or pretend things are one way when clearly they are not. Hug my sons more... Definitely hug them more.

Hey, I'm getting a little excited about the years ahead. Wondering if I'll make it back to thirty - how cool that will be? Oh I was at my peak then, only I didn't know it! It was an interesting year; I remember it vividly because that year I held what is still spoken of as the best birthday party ever: You know those murder games where you get to be a character and sit around a table after dinner trying to figure out who the killer is? Well... I took it a little further. I rented costumes and had them delivered with instructions; I wrote out scripts; I sent the ten invitees on missions, where they had to do ridiculous things before they got to my place... Only they didn't know who'd organised this escapade or where they were ending up till they solved all the clues?

Dinner was delayed an hour or so because one of them refused to believe that the poor Chinese gentleman behind the counter at a suburban motel didn't understand what the wink was about? (The instructions clearly stated "Wink at gentleman behind counter till he hands you over a clue." But this particular gentleman was in the know and quite the prankster, and he concocted some tricks of his own?) So said friend persevered, winking and blinking... to a supposedly non-English speaking Chinese guy who looked more and more menacing - till his girlfriend dragged him outside and they had a bit of a verbal spar on the main highway? They only stopped because they heard sirens approaching... It was a memorable birthday, one I still look back on fondly, though some changes have taken place since that night. Three of the faces are no longer part of our extended family, one tragically so.

Still, might do the same for my next 30th... I think I could still pull off the cute French maid uniform... don't you? I have enough years ahead to get into shape, surely?

So thank you in advance for your kind wishes on this, my 44th birthday today. I am hoping you have also mentally adjusted your ages to some half-way number (old and young alike?) and will join me on this ride?

... And, it seems the year ahead has already begun in a rather interesting way:

"Happy Birthday Elise, may you... etc. etc." This from my partner in language butchering, just after midnight my time.

"Thanks for the wishes, beautifuk words!!!"

Yep...