When I whine about turning fifty, people often tell me it’s just a number. To me it’s a big number. Older people wish they were “only” 50. Younger people show proper respect and sympathy while they secretly think, “I’m glad it’s you and not me.”
I’m five decades.
I’m two score and ten.
I’m half of a century.
Kids look forward to turning double-digits, then becoming a teenager, then achieving 21. After that we embrace the presents and the cake, but not the number.
Nobody wants to be old. We don’t mind being older, but not being old.
The biggest surprise about turning 50 is how quickly it came. One birthday I’m getting stuffed kissing monkeys whose arms Velcro around each other, the next birthday I’m a wrinkled Gwamma wondering if I’ll ever accomplish my life’s ambitions.
A walk through a cemetery helped me decide “Turning 50? Dread is Better Than Dead.”
My Golden Birthday started like most days for the last quarter century. I fortified myself with coffee and my Bible, then did a load of laundry. I picked up the house and finished packing for vacation.
Fifty doesn’t have a feeling, but I have a feeling about being fifty.
Happiness is a choice, not a circumstance.
It shouldn’t be an age, either.
The upside of turning fifty?
- I’m not a teenager. I don’t dream about forgetting my locker combination or walking the hallway without certain items of clothing. Wait. I guess I still do.
- Nobody asks for help lifting or moving heavy furniture.
- Inappropriate body noises are expected for old people.
- The gray in my hair is wiry enough I don’t need hair bands or bobby pins to style my hair.
- I can go to the grocery store with paint on my clothes and in my hair.
- An alarm clock isn’t needed to wake me up early in the morning.
- My husband is losing his eyesight and refuses to wear glasses, so he thinks I look as I did when we married.
- I can join AARP. I hope they let me in, even though Mommies never really retire.
- Others’ opinions about my crazy behavior no longer matter, but I have accidentally embarrassed my kids on occasion.
- I’m experienced. If I haven’t gone through a problem, one of my friends has. We survived and grew.
- The convictions I gained studying the Bible in my younger years have been tested by trials. I no longer just know the right answers, I’ve had to live them.
- Ten years of cancer and losing many friends to cancer have given me a new outlook on life. The Lord didn’t promise me a long life or a healthy life, He promised me eternal life. I accept and rejoice in this.
- When I was 11 I decided I wanted six kids. The Lord blessed me with that desire.
- Scott and I also have four grandkids, two granddogs and one grandcat. We look forward to aging with a lot of company along the journey.
- My youthful dreams about traveling have come true.
- People expect me to misplace my cellphone, keys, and purse on a regular basis.
- If I put on weight nobody suspects I ate too much chocolate. They assume I’m aging.
- Little accomplishments are celebrated by others because “it’s not bad for my age.” Like when I started running and could only run two blocks.
- My kids finally lost the expectation that I will call them by the right name.
Fifty is a big number. But, it numbers years of big blessings.
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Hello and a very happy 50th to you sweet Mindy! I am totally out of blog reading and it was just a nice providence for your blog to come up in my email today. May God bless you with many more happy days!
You’re funny!!!!
I would bet the best thing about 50 is the grandkids. 🙂
Interesting thing, you’re 20 years older than me. I turned 30 this year. You know what I like about you being older than me? The wisdom that you’ve shared with me when we’ve been able to visit. With age comes wisdom and that’s pretty great too for those of us you’re shared it.
Love you. Happy birthday.
And may you have many many more “numbers”
Thank you! I’m finally over the hump about being over the hill! 🙂
Age is a strange thing, Mindy. Chronologically, I am 55 years old. My body feels every day of it, but inside I still feel like a teenager. I’m sure I couldn’t remember a locker combination if I tried, my wife is always reminding me about missing certain items of clothing and my blog is filled with adolescent angst. I guess when you don’t have children, you never have to grow up. From childhood, the desire of my heart was to have a large family as well. And the Lord laughed and said “Not for you, my dear.” I still need an alarm clock to wake me up, although having been unemployed for nearly a year means that I need neither wake up nor purchase an alarm clock. I still have a full head of dark hair; there are a few spots of gray that one would have to search VERY carefully for in order to find. I have a lot of problems with inappropriate body noises, so perhaps I need to color my hair gray so that the world won’t think I’m rude. Do you think Clairol would start selling gray hair coloring in a bottle if I wrote them and asked very nicely?
I know what you mean by feeling like a teenager, I feel the same inside as I did years ago. Mirrors always surprise me, because I don’t picture myself with wrinkles and droopy skin, I picture myself the way I did in high school and college.
Sorry to hear you haven’t found a job yet. Praying the Lord blesses you with a job that fits your abilities and desires.