Becoming 50

“Wait until you turn 60,” a friend said to me recently. It was a dire warning of things to come because she was having a hard time with it. I tried to imagine that world of dread and loneliness (she’s single, I’m married); I tried to think back to that time, when 40 was approaching, and I wanted to hang on to my thirties—it had been a decade so full of possibilities, growth, fun and accomplishments, I didn’t want it to end. But the forties turned out to be fine, too: more possibility, more growth, more fun, more accomplishments—just getting better all the time.

As the fifth decade approached, I have to admit that the feeling of sliding gleefully into more, more, more! softened a bit as the mentally prepared for, but always unexpected changes began to kick insymptoms of menopause, those stubborn five pounds, so easily disposed of until now, injuries that took longer to heal, and the inevitable appearance of wrinkles and insane spending on products that promise to lift, lift, lift! that goes along with them.

“What would you like to get out of this treatment?” a new facialist asked me the other day.

“I want to look five years younger,” I said.

She cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West, only in a Russian accent, “Hah! You need to go see a plastic surgeon for that!

“What? You don’t believe any of these tightening and lifting creams and serums really work?” I said.

She just shook her head and looked at me with pity. “Only the knife works.

I think she’s better at her trade than she knows because, when I walked out of her treatment room, I thought my face looked ten years younger.

So, how do I feel about being 50? Now that I’m 51 and have had a year to think about it, in truth, it feels just like being 30, except smarter, wiser, more self-confident, more comfortable in my skin. I never had a problem telling people my age, and still don’t. The spiritual path I took on at 21—which continues to remind me to look within for joy, love, peace, fulfillment, hope and all the other names we come up with for God—feels stronger and truer than ever. And, although I don’t think I look better than I did at 30, I think I look pretty good, except to those who only see me in comparison to the way I used to look. But, I don’t care about them. I am in complete agreement with a friend who recently told me that she doesn’t care if her ass looks fat, ‘cause she doesn’t have to look at it. “That’s for the people walking behind me to deal with.”

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