50 is the new 30

I’ve been feeling very reflective, of late.

I’ve always been one to do a lot of thinking. Too bad I didn’t have enough gumption to go beyond high school, school wise. I just wanted to be done with school, so it never crossed my mind to try to go to college. I wasn’t a great student, hated to study. In fact I never studied. Not once. I eked by on random memory and lucky guesses.

Saturday morning, it’s foggy outside so that the room is bathed in gentle gray tones. I have fans and a lot of white noise going on. White noise helps me relax, total silence makes my ears ring. It’s perfect for ponderings. My mind jumps around like a whack-a-mole. I tend to think in spurts.

I’m being dragged into October kicking, screaming, latching on to stationery objects. It’s like a giant wind machine is blowing me backwards toward my next birthday. Five Oh, we ain’t talking Jack Lord and Danno here.

Now that I’m here, approaching 50, it ain’t so tragic. I still feel young, mentally. I still have challenges to conquer and unfinished business to see to. Life keeps changing, you can’t set anything in stone, cos you have to roll with the flow.

When my mother turned 51, I made her a “cake” out sugar free lime jello with “Dot” spelled out in cantaloupe balls. (She was newly diagnosed diabetic.) And "LI" (51 in roman numerals, silly) I got Auntie Virg to get Dot and Chris out of the house and I set up the boom box with 50’s tunes and sat out her “Elvis” Bradford Exchange plate collection. Hung some streamers. Auntie Virg, Kat and lil' Chris thought the whole thing was great. I think Dot did too, but something in her personality made her always have a “this is ridiculous, why are you wasting my time” attitude, even though she was tickled with the attention at the same time. (She was a wonderful cook and loved Mel Brooks movies)


I may still have a few tricks up my sleeve. I am a fast learner, um, most of the time. Always something to look forward to, except that gets clouded by something to dread, sometimes. Of course, I’m always busy imagine the worst case scenario, too. A worrier’s work is never done. Everything always smoothes out, eventually, I’ve been lucky that way.


These pics are almost 20 years old, from the “Over the Hill Party” RonDan threw me when I turned 30.