There comes a point in everyone's life when they have to stand up and shine.

For me, that day is soon approaching. I'm sure that you've heard the rumors and yes, it's true, I'm turning 36 this Wednesday. Why is it that I get so happy on my birthdays? It's as though it is my own special holiday.

Sure there was Christmas and New Year's and all, but this, this is mine. Well not exactly mine; I do have to share it with about a few million others but it's still pretty low key.

After all, it's not like Hallmark is marketing special Bradley's B-day cards, although personally, I think they would sell like hotcakes. (Sorry folks, but while my age might allow me access to the grown-up table, my maturity level is still holding onto a sippy cup.)

Birthdays have a sort of bittersweet ring to them. You feel special because it's “your” day but, on the other hand, as the count gets higher you feel uneasy because youth is now farther than what it was the day before.

It's for that reason lately I've been doing the “life math” and I'm starting to come away with some confusing sums. I figure that, generally speaking, I'm only going to be breathing for about eighty years so, in a sense, I am now reaching my mid-life. So you know what that means don't you? Mid-life crisis.

Scared yet? Well you should be because this is me “normal,” imagine what will happen when the “crisis” hits. All I can say is at its peak I'm sure it will make Mardi Gras look like a quilting bee.

Now granted although I am looking forward to that dip into depravity it also means that I'll also have to be ready for the inevitable coming of my second childhood, and while that might seem all well and good my first one was a little rough; so I don't know if I'm ready for another helping. But I do miss a few things from being a younger version of myself.

For instance when I was little, I don't know, maybe around 1 or 2, when I went to the bathroom to do my business I would be given a lollipop, or maybe a rousing “Atta-boy!” cheer; that never happens now. I miss that. Plus there was more napping allowed. Today if I want to catch a nap it involves a note on my closed office door saying “Gone to get coffee” back in fifteen minutes.“ While my head balances precariously on my keyboard.

I did have it made back then though. My own chauffeur, meals prepared by a string of cooks, and the girls all looked up to me. OK, so my chauffeur was Charlie the bus driver. My cooks were the lunch ladies. And the girl thing? Well, what can I say? I was tall for my age.

But if I have learned anything it's this. Although my age might increase I never have to really grow up.

Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each Sunday, in The Citizen.

He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com