The View From 50
I always assumed that one day, I'd be 50, and 60, and maybe even 75 or beyond if I ate right and looked both ways before crossing city streets. But I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about how it would feel, or what I would be doing. Actually, I never gave those things more than the most fleeting possible consideration. Arrogant Baby Boomer that I am, I figured midlife wouldn't be any harder than the other stages of life I'd been cruising so smoothly. Everything has always gone my generation's way, why not this?
Which is simply to say, I didn't have a clue, not that it would have helped much if I had; I can see that now.
Turning 50 wasn't all that big a deal, it seemed to me. I began my new decade feeling quietly smug about everything from my dress size (8) to my marriage (26 years and still having fun) to my office (posh executive suite). Since nothing seemed any different, I was oh so comfortable with the whole 50s thing at first.
Thought when I turned fifty, I'd reach my full maturity,
and I'd exude serenity, so whole and centered I would be.
Guess I thought it common sense (some sort of natural recompense?)
that fears and doubts and recklessness would end by fifty, if not less.
It didn’t last. The years between 51 and 54 were, increasingly, a time of wondering why the real me was letting some reckless woman parade around in my clothes ..... and 55? Well, I guess that's when I finally acknowledged three aspects of my new reality: nothing I could do would ever make me young again; in Corporate America, that sort of thing doesn't go unnoticed; and the passing of years does not automatically bestow great wisdom on a person.
Couldn't tell you how I knew, or why I thought the notion true
that foolish things I used to do, I'd shed like snakeskin, and start new!
So it was to my surprise that fifty did not make me wise,
nor do much to minimize the flaws I thought age would disguise.
I began to feel pretty foolish about my former naïveté. How well I thought I knew myself. How stable I thought my life was. How much I’d accomplished professionally and how secure my job was. How gracefully, even elegantly, I assumed I would glide into my next life chapter. What a self-deluded dope I turned out to be! Now, uninvited winds of change were collapsing my personal house of cards.
Yet wisdom of a sort I found, for fifty offered higher ground
On which to stand and look around, life’s lessons clearer from the mound.
And one especially beckoned me. It said, “Don’t fear uncertainty!
“You’re not yet all you’re going to be....Take pleasure in the mystery.”
Take pleasure in the turmoil I was experiencing?? Now, that was a new thought. It was true that a lot of my life had begun to feel mysterious, and that my future had begun to seem uncertain. If I embraced these changes, would that help me discover who I was becoming? I realized then that I could willingly travel Route 55. The view from 50 wasn't so bad, and now I want to see the view from 55....and 60....and, yes, maybe even 75 or beyond.
Which is simply to say, I didn't have a clue, not that it would have helped much if I had; I can see that now.
Turning 50 wasn't all that big a deal, it seemed to me. I began my new decade feeling quietly smug about everything from my dress size (8) to my marriage (26 years and still having fun) to my office (posh executive suite). Since nothing seemed any different, I was oh so comfortable with the whole 50s thing at first.
Thought when I turned fifty, I'd reach my full maturity,
and I'd exude serenity, so whole and centered I would be.
Guess I thought it common sense (some sort of natural recompense?)
that fears and doubts and recklessness would end by fifty, if not less.
It didn’t last. The years between 51 and 54 were, increasingly, a time of wondering why the real me was letting some reckless woman parade around in my clothes ..... and 55? Well, I guess that's when I finally acknowledged three aspects of my new reality: nothing I could do would ever make me young again; in Corporate America, that sort of thing doesn't go unnoticed; and the passing of years does not automatically bestow great wisdom on a person.
Couldn't tell you how I knew, or why I thought the notion true
that foolish things I used to do, I'd shed like snakeskin, and start new!
So it was to my surprise that fifty did not make me wise,
nor do much to minimize the flaws I thought age would disguise.
I began to feel pretty foolish about my former naïveté. How well I thought I knew myself. How stable I thought my life was. How much I’d accomplished professionally and how secure my job was. How gracefully, even elegantly, I assumed I would glide into my next life chapter. What a self-deluded dope I turned out to be! Now, uninvited winds of change were collapsing my personal house of cards.
Yet wisdom of a sort I found, for fifty offered higher ground
On which to stand and look around, life’s lessons clearer from the mound.
And one especially beckoned me. It said, “Don’t fear uncertainty!
“You’re not yet all you’re going to be....Take pleasure in the mystery.”
Take pleasure in the turmoil I was experiencing?? Now, that was a new thought. It was true that a lot of my life had begun to feel mysterious, and that my future had begun to seem uncertain. If I embraced these changes, would that help me discover who I was becoming? I realized then that I could willingly travel Route 55. The view from 50 wasn't so bad, and now I want to see the view from 55....and 60....and, yes, maybe even 75 or beyond.
posted by Imagine That @ 3:19 PM
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