Just bought myself a gorgeous new journal as I’m thinking documenting what life will be like at fifty deserves some special presentation. My journal is leather with a beautiful rich brown and tan cover and self-wrapped in a strong, hugging, leather tie; keeping my thoughts contained inside. I have decided that to better adapt to the whole idea of an age that forever has been both frightening and mysterious, it might be helpful for me to journal about it.
When I turned forty-nine three months ago, I was so very okay with the thought of both forty-nine and fifty around the corner. All right now, who am I kidding? Forty-nine is really just a number like any other, except that the next 365 days are preparing me to sink into that reality one twenty-four hour globe spin at a time. So, with that thought of impending doom, I am going to put my thoughts in my journal day by day and see if I can make peace with this eventual happening.
Thirty was great; I was married three months before and a whole new life lay ahead. Forty was amazing because my baby had just turned thirteen months old and had weened himself in favor of morning adventures with his older brothers, conveniently, just two weeks prior to my birthday. Freedom and a new decade to explore! I couldn’t have felt better about myself!
So what’s to make me think fifty isn’t going to be the be all end all, as many say it is? I don’t know, maybe when I was a kid and thought my forty year old mother was scary old? Because she really wasn’t, I was just a snotty teenager. Fifty … my mom cried a lot when she was fifty. I never cry. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?
“Fifty is only a number,” they say. “You’re as young as you feel,” echos through the conversations that I present to my girlfriends who are obviously not going to the same place in their young fortysomething heads that I am going to in mine. You just wait, girlie! But, why wait? I’m going to address it NOW! Some days I feel so empowered to be who I am and where I am. And other days I feel defeated, late and a sorry sap who just can’t get anything right.
This is my flummoxed self one day to the next. Still, I have 264 days left to figure this all out. The ups and downs of my emotions, my thoughts, and the way this entire new decade will assimilate itself into my life will be unknown.
Right now, I think I’ve inspired myself sufficiently to think that, hey, maybe it’s all going to be ok. And maybe more than ok, maybe really, really great! I think the looks began to fade a while back but just possibly the wisdom, the insight, and the clarity will far outweigh the threat of wrinkles and blue rinses! Here’s hoping for a lot of fun finding out!
