46

Today's birthday set off a chorus of voices in my head, ranging from the stupified panic ("Good god! Look at the size of that number! Forty freaking six!!")to the excited embracing ("I've earned those years, look out world!") to the folksy ("Like a fine wine, not getting older, but better!") to the philosophical ("Every measurement of time is arbitrary, hell, every measurement of anything is arbitrary.") to the comforting ("When you're 86, you'll look back at this time as being in your prime") to the downright weird (" 46 is the number of chromosomes humans have, 46 is the the atomic number of Palladium, 46 is your birth year backwards!")
To steady the rocking boat, I tried a little exercise. I challenged myself to list one memory for every year of life. The rule was I had to be sure that I could tie a memory to a specific year. A lot of memories are kind of loosey-goosey, they could reasonably be within a two/three year window. (That trip to the Grand Canyon with the grandparents could be anytime from '74 through '76.) Those uncertainties wouldn't cut it. Here's what I found: I gave myself a grace period for the first three years. I have plenty of memory fragments, but can't nail down exact years. The first for sure memory that I can link to a year is 1968 which is when my brother Leif was born. (My parents were hustling us off to Mr and Mrs Buttler's house on the way to the hospital, I lingered by the car chatting with my mother about the moon.)
I had some trouble with 1978, the middle of the junior high years. Plenty of memories, but the chronology is tricky. 1986 is likewise a little hazy and the only anchor I have is the space shuttle Challenger disaster, but somehow that feels like cheating. 1987 didn't feel 100 % right either. And, I had to really, really think about 1993.
Then, curiously, it got really easy at 2000. Partly because it was more recent. But also because that's when I started to produce shows like clockwork and because I've had Jeff around since 2002 and there are joint activities to cement the date.
To my surprise and delight, making this compendium of years has left me calm and ready for the next 46 years.