Facing the Fifties
by Amara Rose

I see my folks are getting’ on
And I watch their bodies change
I grow to see the same in me
And it makes us both feel strange
No matter how you tell yourself
It’s what we all go through
Those lines are pretty hard to take
When they’re staring back at you.

“Nick of Time” by Bonnie Raitt

I got my period on Valentine’s Day. Talk about a literal red-letter day! Never have I been so unabashedly joy-filled at the sight of blood. For the first time, I truly appreciate a euphemism both girls and women have used for generations to refer to their Moontime: “my friend.”

Perhaps I should explain that I’m not thirteen. I’m not even 37. I’m 50, and this is my first cycle in five months. Menopause swooped in without warning last fall, and I dried up like the Sahara. To suddenly bleed after a week in which I did, in fact, feel premenstrual, is confirmation that my body’s still experimenting with the shift. It’s not a done deal. There’s yet time to adjust to the idea of being a crone—and my newfound membership eligibility to AARP (you’ve got to be kidding!).

Now that the largest cohort group in history is graying, someone turns 50 approximately every eight seconds. Even this formidable fleet can’t stem the tide of aging jokes, however. At 50, the good-natured ribbing begins in earnest. My friend, Faith, who celebrated her 50th just weeks before mine, recalled a card she received when she turned 40: “I’m going to have to say the ‘F’ word: forty! Forty! Forty!” We lamented that the greeting card industry doesn’t seem to think we still have a sense of humor one decade later. Why isn’t there a card for 50-year-olds that reads, “I’m at the age where I can freely use the ‘F’ word: fifty. Fifty! Fifty!”

My parents (who do not perceive themselves as “old” in their eighties) sent me a hilarious Dr. Seuss parody of Thing 1 and Thing 2 called “It’s Thing Fifty!” The card included lines such as, “Thing Fifty can groove to the latest CD (and with bifocal lenses, Thing Fifty can see!).”

Hmmm. It’s one “thing” to major in gerontology and enjoy working with elders in your twenties; but it’s quite a different matter when you’re on the cusp of joining a collective that’s marginalized in Western society and rendered virtually invisible.

I remember how my mom told me with pride about a man at the Department of Motor Vehicles flirting with her when she retook her driver’s test at age 65. I was 35 at the time, and even then I wondered aloud in my public speaking class how much longer men would continue to flirt with me?

From the vantage point of an additional 15 years, I find my 30-something fear rather quaint.

The fifties promise to be an intriguing balance of living in an aging body while possessing a certain ineffable wisdom and spirit that were not accessed in our younger years. Although the 20-somethings and teens I meet today often seem wise (far beyond my generation at their age)—due no doubt to the rapid evolution of humanity as a whole—there is much to be said for the joie de vivre that accrues with age. Wrinkles signify ripeness. There’s a reason the honorific “sage” is usually conferred on an elder.

Reconciling body image with spiritual awareness is, paradoxically, only an issue if I choose to focus on the physical. When the body becomes background—as it so often is in youth, since well-oiled, shapely, and firm body parts are easier to “ignore”—our essence shines forth, and that’s what people see when they read the story in our eyes.

Fifty is a time to harvest our joy and acknowledge evidence of our mortality. While several of my contemporaries have already succumbed to life-threatening illnesses, I’ve also watched three dear friends in their fifties meet and marry their life partners. As I’ve been casting my “soul mate” net for nearly a decade, this is heartening news indeed.

Life in the “middle ages” can be bountiful. Oprah, our ultimate generational role model for accomplished aging, said on her 50th birthday: “All these years I’ve been taking lessons from life experiences and feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown. More like myself than I’ve ever been. If it’s true what Maya Angelou says, that the fifties represent everything you were meant to be, all I can say is, watch out.”

As I sit in a local teahouse, happily sipping Rooibos tea and savoring my feminine cycle along with some exquisite chocolate mousse, I’m tickled by these words from The Reconnections website concerning “Meeting the Beloved”: “I saw a license plate the other day on a car belonging to a woman aged 50 plus: ‘Give me chocolate, and no one gets hurt.’ I thought that one was pretty neat until I saw a better one: ‘I’m over 50 and I’m still hot—except now, it comes in flashes.’ ”

How true. Flashes of insight. Flashes of inspiration. Flashes of unmitigated delight at just how extraordinary life on this beautiful blue-green planet we call home can be. One author refers to the second half-century as “Jubilee Time.” I’m ready to party. Considering how many playmates I’ll have in the galactic sandbox, it’s destined to be an unsurpassed blast. Bring it on: fifty! Fifty! Fifty!

Amara Rose can pluck a graying hair from her scalp at 25 mph; driving any faster, she waits for a red light. To see what she’s done with her first half-century, visit www.liveyourlight.com and her blog: www.healthwealthwisdom.blogspot.com

First appeared in the Aug/Sept 07 issue of aspire… Magazine.