Taking A ‘Trip’ – Is Turning 50 The Beginning Of The End?

From A Trip To…A Discovery

 

As a fifty-something, I connect with a lot of women who are smart and fit and vital, who barely skip a beat no matter what mid-life curve they experience. I’m pretty happy about that, and feeling good about being in a place where I’m always (well, mostly always) looking forward, trying to grow and learn and experience everything I can.

Then reality sets in. I’m leaving a restaurant after having a delightful grown-up breakfast with a good friend who is beautiful, poised, extremely fit, and deliberate in all she does, and walking out WHAM! I take a header. In the parking lot. A real header, not just one of those “Whoops, I tripped!” headers. Face plant. A full-on, arm-flailing, comedic-in-the-rear-view event. People are saying, “Oh my god, are you okay?” A nice young man is helping me up and people are handing me my car keys and my glasses.

Never mind that I ripped my slacks, my knee and my palms are bleeding. (I’m happy to say that I’m not so old that I wasn’t more embarrassed than upset about my physical situation.) But of course, now I’m thinking, ahhh…so this is how it happens. The first sign of deterioration – simple at first, a minor loss of control – a departure from the rythmic norm that leads to full onset old-age, my first broken hip and a rapid decline into infirmity.

Or…maybe it’s just that my signature clumsiness (I’m jokingly referred to as “Grace” in my home, although that is nowhere in my name..) is one of those traits that comes to the fore as I get older. So…yikes. But I do have a healthy view of being 50 and funny I once again welcome myself to- if not sunset of my years – then at least mid-afternoon in August.

So, is turning 50 the beginning of the end? I don’t think so! But, I’m a busy lady. In the iconoc words of Scarlet O’Hara, “I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow. “