At this age, they're all milestone birthdays

Another year, another birthday. Normally, seventy-three isn’t that big a deal. But I was doing some Googling—always a scary, stupid thing to do—and it tells me the life expectancy for a male in the United States is seventy-five point eight years. 7 5 . 8!! So doing the math, that gives me two years plus whatever point eight breaks down to. Man…sigh…

Hopefully, you can tell I’m being somewhat facetious about this—with the keyword being somewhat. And did you know that this country's life expectancy has decreased quite a bit since the start of the current leader’s first administration? Thanks, Trump. I guess we can blame Biden, too. Thanks, Joe. Maybe it’s all the stress from dealing with all the years of crap—ya think?!

But, on to the title’s topic… this milestone birthday thing usually only happens on the tens—and maybe the fives. However, when you sadly look at all the people who passed through your life that are no longer with us and didn’t make it this far, it makes you so grateful that you’re still here. If you need a more blunt reminder, take a look at all your high school classmates who have died. It’s scary and sad. So yeah, it’s a damn good reason to celebrate and a damn good reason to call it a milestone.

Here’s to milestone birthday number seventy-three. Onward to milestone birthday number seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six and all I can get. Save me a piece of that cake.