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My wife Shirley turned fifty a few days ago, and I'm turning fifty in early December, so we're having a "Golden Celebration" with 50 of our friends on November 15, midway between. That should be fun, and hopefully free of all the "old" jokes everyone thinks are so funny (yeah riight). The big deal with turning 50 isn't physical age, it's how you feel about yourself. I'm worried that I'm going to start thinking of myself as old, and that will trigger mental rot, and pretty soon I'll really be old. I think this is why men react as they do in a "midlife crisis"; they date young women and dress young and act young, all in an effort to convince themselves they really are still young. Does it work? I have no idea... perhaps I should try dating young women as an experiment :) Most likely in the effort to pretend you're young, you emphasize all the ways in which you're not young, and the whole effort backfires. I must tell you I don't feel old, in fact, I'm sort of amazed to find myself turning fifty, because I think of myself as thirty something, or something. I went through the same thing when I turned forty, I didn't feel that old then, either. Hopefully I'll still feel the same way at sixty! There is one undeniable aspect of turning fifty, you have to think of it as a halfway point; not many people live to a hundred. I've had a pretty good life, a full life, and I guess if the second half is as good and full as the first, I'll be pleased, but still, there will not be a third half, this is it. You start thinking that each day is pretty valuable, because there are less and less of them left. Well so be it, thinking about it won't change it. Even blogging about it won't change it. Or will it?
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If you're a regular reader you know I'm about to turn fifty. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I figured I'd maybe do a few posts on the subject. So this might be Five-O #1 of several.
