FRIEND: "Whats up Mike? Happy birthday brah! You guys have any plans tonight? I know you will be doing big thangs. Ain't no party like a Mike Hicks party."
ME: "Oh yeah. Most def. I think we're gonna rent Horrible Bosses and probably go to taco bell and get one of those Chalupa's like in the commercial where that weirdo retard Brian Wilson acts like he's black ops and tries to rob that nerd for his chalupa. And quite honestly, that chalupa is probably the most beautiful thing I've seen on TV since Lyla Garrity in season one of Friday Night Lights. So Yeahhhh Booyyyyy. Looking fwd to a pretty fun evening!"
ME: "Well check that, I think I have heartburn real bad right now, so I'm just gonna exnay the taco bell thing and have pork chops and macaroni and catch up on all the shows I've got on the DVR that I've been too sick to watch the past few weeks. So I guess we won't be partying so hard after all."
FRIEND: "Oh, umm yeah. I feel ya dog. I hear heartburn sucks. My dad gets it." Does this dialogue sound fucking depressing? Does it make you think I'm a total loser that shouldn't be turning 32 but probably 61 instead? If you say yes, then I kind of agree with you, but instead of being depressed, I'm having way more fun right now listening to the Leesville/Peabody game on KJAE via the intranets and thinking about how, "Effing A! there is still some of those gangster ass pork chops left over and I'm gonna smash it in a few."
Flashback 7 years ago. I was being shot at on the reg by insurgents from every part of the middle east while riding down route Irish from the Green Zone to Camp Liberty, about 2-3 days a week. For fun in my off time I'd hang out on the roof of a building with my fun as shit co-workers and sometimes some of the most elite warriors on the planet, less than 100 meters from one of the most dangerous streets in the world and drink 16 oz Heinekens, and laugh at the celebratory gunfire after some random Iraqis won their soccer game. One time a British guy we often hung out with and usually got us the best beer in the International Zone got shot by a celebratory AK round in the neck. Until then, we just thought it was either a myth or you had to be extremely unlucky for that to happen, and since he didn't die, we thought it was hilarious and just continued hanging out on the roof counting the bullets we heard hit the cement. I'd sleep about 3 hours a day or night, depending on what shift I was working because I was afraid I might miss something awesome happening if I slept too long, and even with the severe lack of sleep I had more energy on a daily basis than most Olympic athletes. I worked and lived to go on the most extravagant vacations, in some of the most exciting, amazing and romantic places in the world roughly every 4-5 months. I did whatever I felt like doing and really had no one to answer to but myself and I was a pretty easy boss umm on myself, too. I scuba dived in several of the best underwater locations in the world, jumped out of planes, fast roped or rappelled down ropes sometimes 200-400 feet high. I would raft through class 4-5 rapids and hope to fall out just to see if I could beat drowning (which we all did once in crocodile infested waters in Costa Rica).
I'd go to bars and once I got bored with drinking, I'd hope for a fight. Anything to bring excitement to my life and like any drug, the more you get, the more it takes to receive the same high. To say I was an adrenaline junkie was a severe understatement. I lived by the motto that you had to test yourself everyday, and if I didn't do something on a particular day that would scare the complete shit out of me, then that day was a huge fail and I couldn't even fall asleep for those 2-3 hours that I was accustomed to, due to a mixture of disappointment and the thoughts of "What am I gonna do tomorrow to make up for this failure?" It may have been 6-7 years ago when I lived like this, but now it seems like almost a century ago.
I turned 27 on October 14th, 2006. I can almost pinpoint the exact moment when I changed completely. I met Melissa about a month before I turned 27(September 6th 2006 to be exact) and that was probably the first step in me thinking/realizing there are better things in life than close calls, copious amounts of alcohol and the confirmation pain that makes you feel alive. Although we were only talking at that time and were becoming pretty good friends, I spent the night of my 27th birthday in a club in Australia (while Trent and Half Nut had just about every girl in the southern hemisphere bringing us free drinks and treating us like rock stars), thinking about Melissa. For one quick moment I relished in the attention or somewhat spotlight we were in, but then that veered off when I had an epiphany that looked a lot like Melissa. Just a vision of her, or really a vision of her not being there and realizing how bad I wished she was there. I guess I was falling in love and that was changing everything. That was pretty much the last hoorah for me. By the end of that 3 week adventure, all I could think about was getting back close to my future love and planning an escape plan for the life I was living, and a strategy to start a new, better one.
NOW: October 14, 2011. I'm 32. I just got out of the hospital with probably my 11th kidney stone. For adrenaline rushes I stalk the fantasy football boards and hope to catch the next great, yet current nobody that will flip out and go for 200+ yards on Sunday and get me like 40 purnts. I stalk my daughter like I'm the CIA and she's Osama's courier, waiting on her to say real words or to discover her doing something I've never seen her do before. I want to be there for her first everything. So far she's learned to say "Football" or "Touchdown" as soon as the TV is turned on a game and that gets me just about as krunk as any action adventure I've ever experienced. Instead of GTL on the reg to go to the clubs and pick up hoes, whoops, I mean girls. I only do cardio workouts in the privacy of my own home and some push-ups so that I don't develop heart problems like my dad, and so I can somewhat impress Melissa and hear her say "You are looking sexy!" it's all the approval I really need.
So in conclusion, getting old and broken sucks. In so many ways. But waking up every morning at 6am and kissing Melissa on the forehead, and then smelling Mariah's hair while she's still sound asleep is the only reason I'm here. The cycles of life are important. Without certain experiences, certain failures and extreme pain, you can never appreciate the good, no, great things in life. So on this 11,680th day of my life, instead of being resentful for losing some of my youthful exuberance, feeling like a pinata that hasn't busted yet, and no longer having the motivation to live life on the edge like I once did, I gladly take the trade I was granted. I thank God everyday that I have such a beautiful family and so many great friends. The memories are great, but the present is much better. When I say I'm depressed about my physical depreciation, clearly I'm joking. Because I have everything I could possibly want or need at this stage of my life. A gift so awesome, that I never even imagined it in my daydreams of my younger days. A wife so perfect and beautiful that she exceeded anything I could have ever imagined in my own mind, and a daughter so perfect, I still look at her and can't believe how perfect she is, or the fact that YES, she's real.
This is why October 14, 2011 is the best birthday ever. And as long as I have my 2 M's, every birthday from here on out will be the same, perfect day.
I no longer look at the old or even middle aged people in the world, that look somewhat beaten down by life and say to myself, "You Poor Bastard!" Because chances are they have everything in their life that I have. Even if we are a little older, slower and uglier.
happy g-day dude.
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