On Turning 50

I recently celebrated my 50th birthday.  It wasn't anything like I envisioned it.  I had hoped to spend the day kayaking down a river, but it was a Friday and everyone I'd have liked to go with was working.  So I decided I'd go by myself.  Or maybe I'd go hiking and geocaching, or just kayak on the lake, or something.  Maybe we could go fishing or go to the beach.  Then I got the newsflash that the world is still spinning rapidly without regard to my birthday plans.  A decision on which house to buy had to be made that day, so I would be fishing for a house, and would have to settle for a dinner at Big Ed's before Friday Night Games. 

Optimist that I am, it was not an awful lot in life to spend one's birthday choosing between two really nice houses.  Would we go with the wonderful ranch with the good kitchen, the gorgeous living room with the white stone fireplace and the wooded yard and the small outdated bathrooms?  Or would we end up in the bright split level with the great closets, the office, the to-die-for inground pool, all those stairs and the yucky kitchen?  At the end of the day, I ended up with the pool house.  The negotiations, the paperwork, and a kitchen renovation are still ahead of us, but the decision is made.

Being 50 can't be that different than being 49.  In the past week, the beginning of summer vacation, I did some fun things.  I went kayaking twice, visiting with the blue heron and the family of loons.  I've done some shopping and started rewatching the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Don't tell the governor, but despite the fact that I'm one of those union-joining budget-sucking teachers, I've completed one and 2/3 of the textbooks I'm reading to prepare for the two new curricula I have to teach next year.  

Best of all, I found my first geocache this week.  For those who don't know, geocaching is a treasure hunt played by millions of people.  Geochachers hide plastic boxes in the woods and register its coordinates on a website.  Then someone in that vicinity picks the coordinates off the website and searches for the box using a handheld GPS.  The searcher opens the box, signs the registry, takes a trinket, and leaves a trinket.  I took a geocache coin and left a seashell marked Seaside Heights.  I had only a small amount of trouble finding the cache, and once done I drove directly to the grocery store to buy some poison ivy wash to remedy that small amount of trouble.  Two days later, I'm happy to report several mosquito bites and a scratch from tripping on a fallen branch, but no rash.  

There was a book that I bought for a friend who turned 50 a few years ago.  I was thinking of that book and toyed with the idea of taking a run to the bookstore to buy myself a present.  But I didn't even know the title, so instead, I registered online for my AARP card and then drove to the library to borrow a copy of New York magazine.  While waiting in a doctor's office (to schedule a colonoscopy!!) I started reading an interesting article and I wanted to finish it.  On the way out of the library, out of sheer wild coincidence and serendipity, I left through a random aisle that happened to contain the book Fifty Things To Do When You Turn Fifty.  That's the book I wanted to buy!  It's a collection of advice essays and what I've learned is that many people are upset about turning 50 because they feel old.  I have no idea what they're talking about.  "50 is the new 30.  50 is the new 40."  I didn't care about 30.  I didn't care about 40.  I'm 50 and I still don't care.  Somehow, my hair's not gray.  Somehow, I'm not losing energy.  Somehow, on some really significant level, I'm not swimming with the other 50-year-olds.  But next month, I will be swimming in my own pool.  So be it.  Viva la 50th birthday!