If you've seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then this number means something to you.
In the movie, they build a super computer that supposedly can give them the answer to the "ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." The computer tells them they will have to return in 7.5 million years, the amount of time it takes Deep Thought to process this question, to receive the answer.
42. The answer was 42.
In 2024, I turned 42. So I'm expectant--for the answers of life, the universe, and everything to begin coming to me.
The reality is, I know less now than I ever have. Age does that to you, I guess. It is humbling. You begin to realize that everyone has something to offer, has had experiences that you have not, has suffered in ways you have not, has met someone you have not. And the culmination of our lives has a bearing on how we speak, act, and treat other people.
My children are no longer little, we are running headlong into adult and teenage years, which is also humbling. I hear the echoes of every single one of my parents' friends saying, "time flies." And the words of the psalmist who says we are like flowers, here one day and gone the next. These bits of wisdom that come to us so frequently in our younger years, it begins to feel cliche, until you reach a certain point in life (sometimes by age, sometimes by experience) and becomes a sobering reality.
So here's to the last half of 42. I hope to God that I will love--every single person--more next year than this one.
