Hello, Laura, This Is Your Mortality Calling

I'm sorry but we must talk about it...

So I’m trying to get my head in the right place, and actually, it is getting a little better. I know that I only have a few more days left to come to terms with this. “Come to terms with this” – as if it’s a terminal illness or something. Well……in a way we are all walking around with big fat T stamped on our foreheads. As difficult as it is to hold in my brain for more than a few seconds at a time, yes, this is partly about giving the nod to inevitable mortality.
When I was a kid, I tried to picture what I would look like at 18, 25, 30, maybe 40, and then maybe said things like “when I am 80” which had about the same sincerity behind it as “when I make my first million dollars.”

I don’t ever remember trying to picture how it would be when I was 50 because it was NOT interested and I felt I had more pressing things to worry about. In my mind, reaching 50 meant the beginning of BLANDNESS and – yes, Mich – invisibility. Skin gets pale, hair gets pale, eye color fades, you get shorter, weaker, and much more middle of the road. Even people who are revolutionaries have to change their diet at some point and cut out the rich foods because they just can’t take it anymore.

Now I am almost 50. At best, 50 is seen as a midpoint. 50 is a half century. Half a dollar. 50% -- half of a whole. Is it half of a whole life? Most people probably feel it’s more than half, because they cannot fathom living to be 101 years old. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when you reach 50, you are most likely half or more than half way down the road. So I look back over my shoulder at everything – and it’s a lot – and I wonder what can possibly be next?

50 is the wakeup call. 50 cannot be ignored. 50 IS HUGE, in my book. There are no more excuses at 50, because you really are old enough to know better. If you don't know better, you can easily fake it. And hadn’t you better know –at this point – what the hell you are going to do with the rest of your life?