I am a 51 yo RAH... well, 52 in a week.
I got so cocooned, wrapped up in my own finite world. The possibilities of experience, emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual... all existed within than finite universe... No risk! Just sameness... for me. for my loved ones...
I told my wife I didn't want a big 50th birthday party, which she wanted... I didn't want or need all that... happy friends and relatives extending their good wishes... It was a kind of emotional masochism, isolation, which, in some perverted sense..... I savored.... All at the expense of my loved ones... Well, if no one reaches out to me, I don't have to reach back... it' just easier that way.... Thankfully I had been at the point for only a year or two.... But damn, how I regret it, shutting everyone out, denying my wife that special pleasure..... my kids... I'll never have another 50th birthday.
I've been recovering since 2 weeks after my 51st... My 52nd is coming next week.... We are having a special surprise party for my wife's brother's 50th the day before mine.... The joy she's having in setting up, planning, scheming to keep it secret....
Thanx for your post, I needed that now...
Mark