Fellow samplers of a certain age chuckled in agreement. That’s when it hit me – the sarcasm, the pride in using sophisticated multi-syllable words, the eagerness to sample anything free; standing there, Joy in hand, at age 40, I realized that like it or not, ready or not, middle age was suddenly upon me. Or maybe it was youth’s kiss goodbye – more of a peck really, nothing long, slow and rapturous. Whatever it was, it sounded a lot like a slurp of Joy. I discerned this rather immediately upon observing the collective raised eyebrow of non-sampling Starbucks regulars who stood in line and interrupted their regularly scheduled texting to make deer-in-headlights eye contact. I stared back, straw in mouth, unfazed, resolute. I drink Jaded now. Nothing rattles me.

I wasn’t like this a decade or so ago. Nope. I was the guy with dilated Y2K pupils, stockpiling nonperishables, going Chicken Little over crashing computers, oil spills in the North Atlantic, midnight nukes, wondering who did the math when the fateful hour had passed.

So what’s changed? My nerves, I think. They’re either shot or settled. Not sure which. Doesn’t matter. Unlike the Roaring 20s and the Depressing 30s, I’m a new man: an emerging Gibraltar, no longer on a roller coaster carved by circumstance. Still, every so often, I have my moments – mostly related to keeping the doctor happy … like when it’s 7 p.m. and I’m three glasses of water short of getting my eight in for the day and know I will be spending the balance of the evening in the bathroom. Or when it suddenly dawns on me that I haven’t forced any leafy greens down my esophagus in weeks. Horror-stricken, I surrender to raw spinach, open my mouth and conclude that Popeye’s taste buds were shot.

Though a bitter pill to swallow, I have also attained a Nirvana-like state of self-acceptance about my mid-life failed dreams: Enya won’t be cutting an “Enya Face” CD, despite my suggestion; No company will ever purchase the rights to my patented That Was Stupid Button (a must-have for meetings); And, sadly, there will be no facial Rogaine for men like me who couldn’t grow beards if their life depended on it. I get it now. My ship may never come in. It’s okay. I don’t need the spotlight. I’ve found something better. I found my middle-aged cup of “Joy” thanks to those magical creatures who call me daddy.

“I’m thankful for blankeys, Spongebob – oh! – AND black ants!” they said as we went around the Thanksgiving table last Holiday season. Paraphrasing highly esteemed kindergarten teachers, red ants are evil, they informed me, and blank ants are larger, darker in color and our friends. And it’s always good to know who your friends are.

Later, during a “Home Alone” commercial break on the eve of Black Friday, with a taxed look on his face, my 6-year-old remarked, “This buy-one-get-one-free stuff sure is getting old.”
Then came Christmas.

Last Christmas, my kids and I squeezed all we could from our time together: gingerbread houses and hot chocolate, a horse and carriage ride, holiday lights, the Christmas Eve bell choir, board games, the whole nine. There was one tense moment – when shouts of “Mine!” and “No! Mine!” erupted. It seems that the kids had unevenly divided the nativity set wise men and were feuding over baby Jesus.
Parenting classes did nothing to prepare me for this. Confiscating Jesus – taking Christ right out of the Christmas scene – just didn’t feel right. So there I stood, ogling the little devils, trying to figure out what parenting strategy to employ, trying to form words.

“Fighting over baby Jesus? At Christmas? This is sooo wrong …,” I said. Thankfully, before I could figure out what came next, baby Jesus was bartered for the camel and the ox – a crooked trade according to my son.
Such things I cherish fully now, more so than I did when I was younger and knew everything – when I had a killer mullet. Suddenly, it’s all about photographs and memories, but mostly the memories.

Later that night, my daughter provided two more: drawing hearts on a piece of scrap paper, handing it to me and saying, “For you, Daddy, because I love you,” then adding before bed, “I think about you when I dream.”
I drank from her words, feeling my 40-year-old heart grow at least three sizes. Starbucks got nothin’ on my little cuppa’ joy.

Jeff and his better half

In a short while, I will have been married exactly half of my life. Both numbers–my age and my marriage–are pretty big: 50 and 25. To make me feel REALLY old, that’s a half-century of life and a quarter-century of marriage.

Does that make me an expert on life and marriage? Yes. Of course it does. Why not? There are people on FOX and CNN every day claiming to be experts who are clearly clueless. Why not me?

It’s important for me to begin with a disclaimer: these thoughts are from my uniquely male perspective. My wife may see things differently. (If you’re paying attention, you have just learned something about my secret to marital bliss. I never attempt to speak for my wife. In fact, it’s good advice to avoid speaking for yourself, too, but I’m going out on a limb here for the sake of helping others. I will undoubtedly regret it.)

That said, I think it’s important to understand marriage as a series of stages, rather than go down the typical “tips and tricks” route you might find in a dog training article. There are five stages of every long-lasting marriage. This was scientifically proven in a scientific marriage laboratory. At least, I think it was marriage they studied. Anyway, it’s important to know which stage you are currently in so you know what to do and what to expect in the future. Kind of like the way Lance Armstrong can keep pushing through his intense physical pain while climbing mountains because he know the mountain stage will end soon and he can move on to the intense physical pain of a different stage.

Stage One: Denial
Technically, this is the pre-marriage stage. I’ve seen commercials on TV in which a young woman announces to her friends that she is engaged, and they all scream, giggle and cry. Men just cry. Guy friends don’t take engagement news as good news. As they see it, they’re losing a buddy. That’s why we generally don’t tell our friends we’ve popped the question, and deny it when accused. Women, beginning minutes after they are born, dream in great detail of their perfect wedding day and the white-picket-fenced bliss to follow. With men, it’s more like just a haunting feeling we’ll end up painting a damned fence someday.

Women do not experience this stage. Contrary to denying, the average woman will announce her engagement to everyone she knows and several people she does not know, sometimes before telling her future husband. This stage has a definitive ending: the wedding day. I have no advice for men in this stage. Just survive it.

Stage Two: Anger
This is an excellent stage, despite the negative sounding name. She gets angry at him for his lack of passion about such important details as choosing linens and silverware. He gets angry at her for expecting him to read her mind. Then they both realize how silly they are being and then the excellent part of this stage happens. I can’t describe that because this is a family magazine. This is definitely the most passionate, exciting stage, and typically takes place in the first few years of the marriage, or in some cases, several decades. My advice: don’t fight it…enjoy it. The most important thing to know, however, is that you must have a short memory. No grudges…making up needs to be truly making up, and marks the absolute end of the anger. Period.

Stage Three: Bargaining
Marriage gets complicated when kids show up and you have to deal with house and car payments and distractions of that nature. Successful couples are successful bargainers. “I’ll wash the car if you’ll do the laundry” is not a good bargain. “I’ll do the laundry and wash the car, you go relax” is a great bargain. You should never strive for balance, because when the bargain is fair, both sides feel shorted. Better that each person feel smugly “ahead” of the other.

Of equal importance is to feel and express appreciation for the other person fulfilling their end of every bargain. A word of caution, though: if you get too good at this and begin to experience something like total bliss, you risk losing the spark from Stage Two, which can be running concurrently with any stage. You never want to get TOO good at getting along.

Stage Four: Depression
I wish I could tell you there will never be a sad day in your marriage. (Fortunately for me, I’ve never had a sad day or any reason to be depressed during my own marriage, but I’ve heard it is quite common to experience low times.) I think the important thing is to commit yourselves to be depressed together. As you face the fact that “6-pack” now describes your diet more than your abs, you realize how lucky you are to have a spouse who loves you despite the fact that you are no longer appealing to anyone, including them. My advice for this stage is to begin a new diet and exercise plan based on an unrealistic expectation of regaining your youthful beauty. That won’t help, but it will keep you busy until you move on to the final stage of marriage.

Stage Five: Acceptance
All couples BELIEVE that they start with this stage. Almost immediately, they accept that they have made the right choice in a life partner and that they will live happily ever after. In fact, this stage comes much later. When you accept that you are not perfect and your life is not perfect, yet things are pretty darned good anyway, you have reached Stage Five. You accept her, she accepts you, and you each accept yourselves. Combining this stage with some of the better elements of the Anger stage is a great recipe for success.

Well, there you have it. Proof that 25 years is not nearly enough to make an expert of me. Chances are, you’ll forget all this (if you’re lucky, anyway) so let me just say one thing you really should remember: Whatever stage of marriage you’re in, keep going. It’s a journey that’s worth every step, including the painful ones. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Fight for it at all costs.

I’ve lived half a life married and half a life on my own, and while I have no complaints about the unmarried half, there’s no doubt in my mind that the married half has been my better half.

I remember a clock ticking loudly, too loudly, causing me squirm. I searched desperately for the chair’s sweet spot, trying not to call attention to myself, trying not to give myself a wedgie on national television.

Sitting across from me, mere inches from my nose, Nipsey Russell studied me with twinkling eyes.
“Stonehenge,” he said, then repeated it, louder than before, with a nod, with urgency.

I stared blankly, scanning his face for a clue that wasn’t there. The clock ticked louder. My mind raced. Stonehenge. Stonehenge. What did it mean? “Uh … the U.K., rocks, circles, religious ceremonies, wonders of the world …” I said, grasping.

Flustered, Nipsey abandoned me for 3 precious seconds, then nearly came unglued. “Women’s fashion,” he shrieked, shaking his hands ecstatically.

Suddenly, it clicked.

“Things a man will never understand!” I shouted.

Chaos. A bell dinged repeatedly. The clock stopped. We jumped up and down. Dick Clark shook our hands vigorously as the “$25,000 Pyramid” theme song filled our ears. Calgon took us away to a commercial break.
Stupid dream. I won’t be sharing that one with my boss, just in case (in the unlikely event) there’s still a remote chance for promotion.
Not an hour later, overheard in the hallway: “Nice top.” This time it’s a woman-to-woman compliment. No confusion there. It’s literal. They gush about her shirt for a full 60 seconds.
The thought that no one says “nice bottom” crosses my mind. Funny. Such flattery would be less ambiguous than “nice pants” in my world.
I glance at the framed “Life is like a box of chocolates …” poster on my wall and feel the sarcasm bubbling up. With apologies to Forrest Gump and everything that is decent in this world, sometimes, life is like a box of grenades … especially when it comes to men’s fashion.

It happens to everyone: that jolt that awakens the philosopher inside. Maybe it doesn’t happen often enough.

Flashback: 3 weeks ago …

I hammer away on my laptop while my 4-year-old stacks blocks. Suddenly, by stealth, she sidles up in her Ugg-boots, looks me square in the ear, says “daddy” and waits for a reaction she does not get.

It’s my loss.

Her wee voice fails to penetrate the spreadsheet-induced fog I’m in — the one hijacking my senses. Despite my pent-up, inappropriate seriousness, she presses on. One thing she knows: some things in life are more important than spreadsheets. She inches closer and percolates once more.

“Daddy,” she squeaks, louder, still sweet, yet with urgency – like Enya suddenly finding her “Enya Face” voice.

“Huh? Oh, hi honey!”

“I have a secret.”

“A secret? Well now, that’s delicious. What is it?”

“I know all about letters,” she whispers, cupping her hands, then pointing to the tower of blocks.

I stare at her creation, astonished to see the blocks bearing the letters ‘M’, ‘A’ and ‘D’ (for “Maddie”) stacked on top. Mouth agape, I look back at her.
Her smile is proud.
If not for her divine persistence, I would have missed it … over a spreadsheet. I blame me: I know better.
As far as announcements go, there are none more important than those of a 4-year-old … always delivered with drama and panache. Not a week earlier, she cornered me with her doctor kit and gave me my yearly physical: pulse, blood pressure, stethoscope, the whole enchilada. Turns out, I needed a shot. As she readied the plastic hypodermic needle, she rolled up my sleeve, eyeballed me and said with drummed up seriousness, “This won’t hurt, Daddy.”

I’d be lying if I told you that the twinkle in her eyes didn’t say something more, something sobering, something like, “Daddy! Hello? You in there? Life is happening. I’m all over it. Follow my lead.”

What other wake-up calls lie ahead? I can only speculate. For now, I’m still digesting, “Daddy, I know all about letters.” After she whispered it, I snatched her up onto my lap, intrigued by this waist-high creature with a heart full of all things worth exploring. We laughed. We squeezed. And from somewhere underneath the skin, the Longfellow within me sprang to life:
Daddy, I know all about letters;
The ins, the outs,
The ups, the downs,
The loops, the sounds:
ALL about letters.

“Tell me about the letters, honey,” I said.

As her eyes beamed back at me, her thoughts were laid bare: You finally got it, Daddy. I’m sooooo happy.

Want more? Visit http://ifguyscouldtalk.blogspot.com.

“Would it kill you to go outside and move around a little bit?” asked every 1960s mother of cartoon-watching kids (like me). This was back when TV first began killing children in earnest, but it’s a proud tradition still carried out by today’s mothers of video-gamers. The answer, I have come to believe, is “yes, it might kill me.”

My fitness story is one of pain and injury. If “no pain, no gain” was true, I would be heading for Vancouver this winter to win all the Olympic events. I’ve had enough pain for that much gain.

My fitness experiences can be broken down into four distinct genres, each with its own hazards.

Good Old-Fashioned Hard Work
My first clear memory of feeling fit is back when my parents slaved me out to our family farm for summer work. There’s nothing quite as effective for turning 100 pounds of baby fat into lean muscle mass as picking 100 pound rocks from a field in 100 degree heat. I was doing the job of a front-end loader. About a week after returning home, when the swelling went down, it felt great to be in shape.

Sports
For me, competing in sports returned the most fun for my fitness investment. That’s why adults use sports so effectively to trick kids into fitness. Of course, today’s youngsters start working with a professional trainer at age two. I generally didn’t start training for a sport until the day practice started. Thus the term, “hell week.” My sporting years were, sadly, all too brief. I played football until I had a neck injury and concussion, I wrestled until I dislocated a disk and I ran track until it aggravated my back injury. Glory days!

Outdoorsman/womanship
The biggest enemy of fitness in adults is adulthood. When you become an adult, there are fewer sports to be involved in, and no coaches screaming at you to keep going. That’s when you become a “weekend warrior” in the great outdoors. I hunt, which is great exercise involving strenuous walking while carrying a heavy weapon and staying out of range of the Vice-President. I also enjoy cutting, stacking, splitting and burning firewood. This, too is great exercise, and the only hazards are chainsaws, axes and fire. But weekends are not enough, even for warriors. Without consistent exercise, you risk injury. For example, you might tear your ACL on a family ski trip simply because you remember how easily you could charge moguls when you were younger. I’m not saying it happened to me, but it could happen to anyone. Trust me on this.

Exercising
The least desirable way to get and stay fit is by exercising. I’m referring to exercise “As Seen on TV,” where you can look great for only five easy payments of $29.99. The greatest hazard of this form of fitness is that you may die of boredom. My advice on exercise equipment: buy the device that hold the most laundry. That’s what my Nordic Trak® is doing right now.

My point, if I have one, is that fitness hurts, but it’s worth it. I know, because I’ve tried that weekend warrior thing, and it just isn’t enough. I’ve gained weight, lost energy, don’t sleep well, and, yes, I have just as much pain not exercising as I had when I was in shape. Guess I’m just injury prone.

So now I have to get fit, and it won’t be easy. According to a height/weight chart my life insurance company sent me, I should be at least 6 inches taller. I guess I’ll hit the Nordic Trak® again…as soon as the sweaters are dry.

A few more words from Jeff: While my article about my painful experiences trying to stay fit over the years IS truthful (and I hope humorous) I would like to add that I was serious, at the end of the article, about getting back on the ol’ Nordic “rack” (after the laundry was dry of course.) Between the ski machine and REAL skiing, I have maintained a commitment to ski at least three times per week, and I’ve managed to lose back all the weight I gained over the holidays and then some.. I didn’t follow all that good advice about how to avoid holiday weight gain, obviously. More important than pounds, I feel better. My dislocated shoulder and post-surgical knee are stronger and less painful, and my clothes fit better. Snow ROCKS when it comes to workouts!