Today I turned the big 5-0!
Fifty years old! Yikes! Can you imagine?
What do you think you will be doing on your 50th birthday? Or if you are 50 or older, what did you do on that big day?
Traditionally, I spend birthdays reflecting on what I’ve accomplished over the past year.
I stayed away from that this year. I’ve let so much of my identity become wrapped up in what I get done on my list that on days where I don’t, I get anxious.
The truth is, we’re not owed any time, and 50 is a respectable age to have survived. And if you’d asked me at 20 what I’d be doing at 50, I’m not so sure I would have thought my 50-year-old self would be doing as well as I am indeed doing.
Would I have known that I’d have two lovely adult daughter who helped break the tradition of my family’s early marriage and no education?
Could I have guessed I would have finished college myself and secured a fulfilling job with people I enjoy working with?
Might I have imagined at 20 that the friends I met in grade school would be with me as I reached the half-decade mark?
Probably not.
Yes, in some ways, my life turned out much better than I dared have hoped.
So yesterday, I threw myself a fairly impromptu party with my best girlfriends. I grabbed a cake at Costco, and we all met on a Sunday afternoon at 3 at a downtown bungalow.
It was magical. And instead of focusing on what I want to accomplish for the next year, I thought instead about how pleased I am to have solid connections. It’s been my friends who’ve helped raise me so that I was fit for a family.
If I have a hope for the future, it is this: I hope for my daughters that they too can have long-lasting positive friendships. And I hope for me that I remember to take the bull by the horns and go for the things I want so much.
Like writing. Love. Like travel.