The Big L

"If you can't get out of something, get into it."



Ahhh, the words of my lord and savior Kris Kristofferson. There aren't many things in life that you really can't get out of.....taxes and death being the most famous.....and if you manage to avoid death for long enough then you can't get out of turning fi , fi, fif....L. L as in the Roman numeral for fi, fi, fi. I can't say the f -word which I know is ridiculous. Not saying it doesn't change anything.  It's still half a century, two-thirds of an average life-span, a whole lotta shades of gray.

I turned forty-nine about a month ago and believe me I fretted (a word that people who are almost L use) about it for months.  A good friend of mine told me to relax.  She assured me that forty-nine was the new thirty-nine and when she did I realized something.  She........is an idiot.  As far as I can tell forty-nine is the same forty-nine it's always been.  It's the forty-nine where hip hop leads to hip replacement.  It's the forty-nine where after a night of sex everything is sore.......except your pussy.  Let me pause here to explain that it's not completely the end of the world.  Young, handsome guys still make my panties wet.  Of course so does sneezing.

After my birthday came and went I realized that what I was freaked out about hadn't been turning forty-nine at all.  It had been the fact that once I turned forty-nine nothing else stood between me and, well you know (I don't give two shits if it rhymes with nifty....it isn't).  I had to face the fact that whether I did it kicking and screaming or with a positive attitude ~ chances were good that I was going to turn FIFTY.

So I've decided that, in the words of the great poet, I am going to "get into it".  Fifty doesn't feel like the winter of my life.  For me it feels like an Indian summer day in late fall.  A day where you wake up and realize that it's beautiful out and life is full of possibilities and that you wasted a lot of summer days.  I've had a lot of wonderful people and things happen in my life.  Far too many for me to complain.  But I've always gone through life in a haphazard kind of way.  Making mistakes and putting out the fires that result, as opposed to making well thought out choices from the start.  Having a very  "play now, pay later" attitude most of the time.  Living with a lot of chaos  and crazy due to a lack of discipline and an apparent allergy to organization. 

I imagine that this will be a journey much like the one we go through as we move through our teens and young adulthood and decide which pieces of our past we want to hold on to and which we have outgrown.  It was a time when we fought hard to define ourselves and our relationship to the world around us and the people in it.  It wasn't easy and you may wonder why I would decide to do it all over again.  This is why... because this time I'm going to be doing it on my own terms.  I'm going to edit and add and polish based on what will feed and fulfill me and the people that I love.  I didn't have that luxury when I faced this challenge as a young adult.  I had well-intentioned people in my life who made me feel that I couldn't be trusted to make my own choices.  People that convinced me that dreams and goals did not eat at the same table.  That if my choices were different from their ideals that love and approval would be withheld and maybe lost.  Although I have the confidence and self-worth now that I didn't have then  I don't expect this to be an easy journey, but this time it will be mine.

If I'm making this seem like it will be an arduous, boot-camp like experience let me apologize.  Yes, some of my plans involve change and hopefully growth which, while worthwhile and satisfying in the long run, can be less than pleasant at the start.  But it won't all be gut-wrench, soul-searching, angst-producing (book selling? lol) work.  After all, there will be fun things to figure out.  For example, through much sampling I hope, how to take care of skin that is L or how to ease my style into my new decade .

One last detail before I start the "making fifty fab" journey.  I'm doing this on a very small budget.  I'm sure that it would be less painful to ease into fifty with some Restylane, a fantastic new wardrobe and six weeks on the French Riviera being pampered by a cabana boy  called Romareo, but how many women, myself included, can afford to do that?  I hope that the fact that this is a blog about how to go gloriously into your fifties on a shoestring budget will make the process more interesting and appealing as opposed to less.  Maybe I shouldn't have told you, but you'd have found out when my "How To Use Your Link Card For Good And Not Evil" post came out.  ; )