5-0

I turned fifty this week.  As you read this, I'm enjoying a week of celebration in the NYC area with family, which of course I will document later.   As I write this, I'm about a week away and still in disbelief.  How could this happen?  I wondered that about thirty, too.  Boy, was that a miserable birthday.  I spent some of it in a dive bar with this nurse I liked, and her tag-a-long friend.  The bar was as sleazy as any I'd ever set foot in.  A drunk, much older (and grotesque) woman pushed off her bar stool one over and lip locked me before stumbling out to Dixie Highway.  My nurse and I did the same in a parking lot later that night while the friend restlessly paced behind us.  I should not have been there, for a multitude of reasons that I'm not willing to share here.

Thirty felt like a death.  Death of youth.  Like I was supposed to become responsible now.  My twenties truly were wasted.  Fun, but fruitless.  I should not have been so concerned about getting older.  I should've embraced it.  A year and a half later, I finally grew up and got my life together.  I met my wife to be, renewed my faith and got back into the church, and was on the path to my current career.  By the time I reached forty, life was overflowing with blessing.  There was no age anxiety.

For others in my shoes, maybe there would've been.  I still had no children, and didn't own a house.  These are societal metrics, yah?

Upon fifty, I still have neither of those.  It's true.  I know that at least one or two around me wonder why.  How I could not have these things? Your life must be empty, brother! And you don't even know it! How can I not feel like some sort of failure?  I don't. And life isn't over yet, boychik.  I do desire them, and pray for them daily.  I often have to draw upon the patience when I was single.  It may not jibe with you, invisible audience, but God is good.  I have an amazing wife, likewise family, a job that offers fulfillment and challenge, a nice place to live, great friends.  I want fifty to allow me to continue to acknowledge these things.

Yes, I want to lose some weight, be fitter, read more, write more.  Be less of a grouch.  But I am grateful.  Grateful for a rich life.  Regrets, sure, I have a few.  A few big ones.  I don't believe people when they say they don't have regrets.  But I don't dwell on them.  They don't consume my memories.  I learned from them.  At my age, many get mired in nostalgia.  It's comforting.  It's fun to visit, but you can't live there again.  Learn from it, take some joy in it.  But live for now.  With an eye on the future, but now.  That's what a solid 5-0 is for me.