I remember my dad’s 40th birthday party. 

Black balloons hung everywhere, and “Over the Hill” signs were plastered on the walls. Many families came to “celebrate,” but most of it involved them roasting my dad with gag gifts that I didn’t understand then (but now I do). 

I asked my mom what “Over the Hill” meant, and she told me it was a joke about being closer to death than you were to the day of your birth.

The black balloons made a lot more sense. 

The whole thing felt weird to me because the adults understood most of the jokes but went way over my head. It also seemed strange to make fun of someone for getting older and one day dying. 

The memory stands out vividly in my mind, and now, as I turn 39, I find myself sitting with it often. 

Next year, I’m going to be “over the hill.”

I’ve got a lot of feelings about that. 

Some of those feelings are about how “old” I thought 40 was at the time; you are closer to death than to birth. Now, as I am within a year of that “midway” mark, I find that I don’t feel old at all. Maybe the wheels fall off in the next 12 months? 

I think about my parents—I am the age they were in my memory. I feel like I understand them a lot more than I did at 18, 25, or even 30. I now read back into those memories with a new perspective as a father and husband. 

But most of my feelings are around time, how much has passed… and how much is left. 

I was working through a box during some Advent cleaning this past week, and it was filled with artifacts from my past. There were newspaper clippings (how archaic), affirmation notes, and thank-you cards. 

An old wrestling team photo. 

A picture of me and my college roommate. 

My childhood teddy bear. 

The box was filled with items that had moved with me (and then my wife and me) from apartment to apartment to house over the past twenty years. Every time we were cleaning up, we looked at the box and determined this stuff was too important to get rid of, so instead, it sat under our bed, forgotten. 

As I went through it, though, memories from the past 30+ years flooded back. I was struck by how God had been a part of my journey in so many places and of some of the really incredible people I’ve been blessed to know. 

One item stood out, though. It was a note written on the back of a white envelope. I wrote it to myself. No date, no context, just these words:

Dear Joel, 

I love you. Christ loves you. I know in this moment you are sad. You are broken. But this moment is only a moment. This moment ends. A new beginning is coming. You are loved. Please believe all you already know. 

Time has worn away my memory of writing that note, so I’m not sure when or why I wrote it, but I did—my poor handwriting is unmistakable. Somehow, this tiny paper made it through several moves and reorganizations. It is an affirmation that has lost its context but not its meaning. 

This moment ends. A new beginning is coming. 

It’s the heart of everything. Life. Death. Resurrection. 

This movement is core to the Christian understanding of the world; it is the Paschal Mystery—the journey of Christ. It promises that in every ending, a new beginning is waiting. 

This is what I am sitting with as I turn 39 – one year away from being closer to death than to life: Every moment ends, but a new beginning is waiting. 

Perhaps this reflection is appropriate as my birthday falls (and always falls) within the season of Advent—a season where the Mass readings point us toward endings and beginnings as we look toward the coming of Christ. So, it is appropriate for me to dig deeply here and ask the question: Am I ready for the new beginnings that Jesus is bringing, and can I let go of the endings? 

The cycle will never stop, but my insistence on holding onto the past and refusing to look forward to the ultimate end prevents me from taking hold of the new things that God is doing in my life. 

Maybe you aren’t turning 40 (or 39)… but can you relate? 

This is why the note is so poignant to me:

I 

Needed

to 

Let

Go. 

Whatever version of Joel wrote that note understood that. He understood that letting go should come with grief and some sadness, but we cannot lose hope for what lies ahead. 

My dad’s life didn’t end at 40. He had many more adventures, laughs, tears, and challenges ahead. He might have been “over the hill,” but that didn’t mean the road was over. 

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. Death and resurrection. 

So, I turn 39 this week – my last year before going “over the hill.” But I’m ready to embrace the new beginnings, the continuation of the journey, and the hope that the future holds. Tomorrow has something beautiful where the Lord makes all things new. I am ready to receive it.