So, that’s it then…I have officially reached the point where my age starts with a five, not a four. I wasn’t sure how I’d wake up feeling today…at forty I was fine, I embraced it. At thirty, I thought my life was over, seriously I think I cried for a week. At twenty…crap, that’s a lifetime away, I don’t even remember how I felt back then. I’m Fifty. I need to try it on for size you know? See how it fits. I could deny it of course…cling to forty nine like a drowning man would cling to a life raft? The flaw in that plan is that I’ve told you all now…me and my big mouth.
I wonder what my fifties will bring? My twenties were all about my boy – he was little, I was first and foremost a mum. I’d pressed the ejector seat on a really bad choice of husband and it was me and kiddo against the world. In my thirties – once I’d gotten over the trauma of actually being thirty – they were all about being a mum, going back to school and getting some smarts, building my career…oh and winning a fairly gruelling battle with the Big C. Husband number two came…and went…watch closely, there’s a theme.
In my forties I was more in control. I still made some bad choices but I was getting better at recognising the fuck-ups and dealing with them quickly, so that’s a bonus at least, right? Husband number three was despatched almost before he’d arrived although not before wiping out my bank account and teaching me some very thorny life lessons. But that was at the very top of the decade…I’ve enjoyed my forties on the whole. I stopped chasing the fairy tale and I got to know me.
As I turn fifty, I’m in control you know? Apart from needing the odd tena-lady obviously if someone makes me laugh till the tears run down my leg. I know what I want, having spent a lot of time over the years experiencing what I don’t want. I love my family, my friends, my career, and now I’m writing too, and the more I write the more I want to write…I suspect I’ve unleashed the beast. Putting yourself out there is daunting but to discover that like-minded people enjoy your stuff fills me with a joy I can’t describe.
It’s a shame I’m still fat, but you know what? Whilst I would have loved to have sashayed into my sixth decade as a skinny string bean, I know this is my time. Time to break out of this life-limiting fat suit once and for all, but exactly when is just semantics…I will be fifty and fabulous, even if it’s technically the day before I’m fifty one. And what’s more, I’m planning to stay there – I already know I’m going to need to mortgage my skinny soul against the commitment of counting a food budget for the rest of my life but hey, if that’s what it takes to prevent my home in Skinny Town being repossessed then bring it on…once I’m there, this time I’m there to stay.
So all in all, early indications are that hitting my big birthday isn’t going to trigger any kind of nervous collapse…we live to march another day, posse! 🙂
