I Am 50

I am fifty.

When you're a child, fifty is a lifetime away. Waking up on a sunny, Summer morning and eating my cereal, anticipating the day, my plan was always to play as much as I could stuff into the daylight hours. Fifty would be a time when life would be over. It was so old.

I was a dirty kid. I wasn't like my sister, who was quiet, a reader, a good student, and CLEAN! I was the loud, rough and tumble, lemme play in the mud puddle no matter how many time my aunt scolded my cousin and me for doing it kind of kid. I was a Tomboy. My dad, of course, wanted a boy. Well, I was as close as he got. I rode the tractor with him, walked behind the tractor in the garden while he plowed, played softball using his childhood baseball bat and was a Virgo just like him. We understood each other well.

So what the heck happened? I'm fifty. FIFTY! The calendar can't be right. Yes, I know it's just a number and you're only as old as you feel. Some days are younger days than others, if you know what I mean. Fifty brings many changes. My body is a totally different body than what I started with. What used to be firm is not exactly in the same spot anymore. What used to be thin, not so much. My hair color comes from a bottle because it has deceived me by letting the color drain right out of it. My feet hate me. Who knew so many things could happen to your feet at the same time?

BUT, fifty has changed my life in a way that I find hard to explain. It's much like what forty did for me only better. It's not that I don't care what people think about me. I don't base my decisions on what people will think of me. I can't live like that because I don't play the shoulda-coulda-woulda game. It's too much work and will make me crazy. So I have learned to live life in the moment and I'm teaching my kids the same.

Another thing that getting older has done for me is allowed me to find my voice. After being in a bad marriage for almost 25 years (and no, all those years weren't bad, per se, but they led up to the really bad ones) I found the strength and the courage to leave. I had no education and no job but was determined to make a break after things happened that were beyond my control that destroyed the marriage. It wasn't easy, especially with a dying father and a mother who loved the shoulda-coulda-woulda game and warned me that things wouldn't be easy, implying maybe I should stay because of money. I assured her that while I may struggle, I would be happy.

And happy, I am. Five years after my divorce was final, I remarried. If there is such a thing, this man is my soulmate. He holds my heart in his hands and treats it as if it was gold. He takes my hand in his at church as we pray together. He looks at me like I'm the only woman in the world. I love him more than I can say in words. We were both single parents with custody of our kids. Our exes are out of town by 3000 and 6000 miles. We didn't have children together, but we share our children and we have formed a loving family. We are being grandparents together. We have nine children and seven grandchildren between us with one more coming in February. It's the Brady Bunch on steroids! Life is good.

I am fifty.