I think the becoming 50 blues are hitting me, with one week in counting. I am now overwhelmed with so much going on this week, compounded now by the mess from the storm last weekend, Glenn being in North Dakota for the next couple of weeks, me having to edit my own atrocious grammar and spelling mistakes, and now having to organize a party for Saturday. It all seems to be eating up and taking more of my time then I had originally planned. Tonight it’s all getting to me!!!!! There is a hard rain on the skylight windows as I look to the northern sky from my bed; it comforts me in some strange way giving me a sense of renewal. Tonight I am utterly exhausted, trying to put it all in to perspective. I saw some pictures from my friend Tony’s yard, just a block up and he had major trees completely uprooted, his extraordinary garden that he has spent years cultivating as been devastated. Yesterday I saw a tree being removed from a house with a crane, just a couple of blocks down. My damage was minor in comparison. My young nephew, Brendan, come over and together we cleaned a lot of the big debris. Sunday’s, I always try to make lighter, with minimal effort to recover my energy, but today I pushed a bit too hard. Glenn has planned this big party for my 50th Birthday next Saturday and then left town to work and will be gone. The studio needs to be cleaned and here I am scrambling trying to make everything else happen when I already have a full week of work planned. I do not feel like I am managing my energy wisely and need to find the balance to better taking care of myself. Does becoming 50 mean I have to give up the energy I once had? To night I feel angry, hostile and completely overwhelmed. Is it the impending birthday that’s causing such anxiety? Why does turning 50 have to be such a big deal? Why do we dread it so much? Am I at that point in my own play where things are in such motion that the outcome can only lead to the final climax, as they daftly sing about “Past the point of no return” in Phantom of the Opera. I definitely don’t feel 50 in my head and body most of the time. It feels like many people who are 50+ seem changed somehow. A buddy of mine at UPS, who turned 50 last year, actually seems like on old man. Is it a mental thing where we have to throw in the towel at a certain age and give up the things that once kept us youthful? Well I don’t feel it; and I know for a fact that many great photographers seem to hit their stride and best works in the later years of maturity. In many ways I feel like I am just hitting my own peak. I can see and now know what the vision actually is. I have the history of my entire existence to draw from and enrich that vision. It feels like I have spent a lifetime of gathering the tools, equipment and resources: filling my creative well with ideas and inspirations. I have lived so deeply thus far that it doesn’t feel like its time to begin the decline yet. I am in great health, reasonably content, mostly happy perhaps I just need to learn to manage my energy better and learn to take care of myself.