Blog

I thought I would be ready for this, but I’m not.

I’m not quite ready to leave my forties, or my youth, even if some would accurately say I left that years ago.

I thought I was prepared to let go of the first half-century of my life, as if there is any promise or likelihood that there will be a second half-century. How many people do you know who live to be a hundred? And who would want that?

Knowing what little I now know of second acts, and the second half of one’s life, I am not quite ready to say goodbye to the best of my days.

This is quite unlike me, and in the strangest and most resigned and inevitable fashion, I feel tears welling up in my eyes.

I’ve never had such feelings before, never entertained, not seriously at least, the fear and terror of leaving it all behind. It was as if there was always the hope and possibility of turning back, like I could, if things got really bad or unbearable, get back to the places of youth and beauty and promise, even if it was all in my head. There’s something irrevocable about 50 that I didn’t feel at 30 or 40 or even 49. And part of me finally feels a little afraid, a little regret, a little hopeless… at all that came before, and all that never came at all – the dreams and plans and aspirations, the wishes and wants and wonderings, the way I thought it would have all played out by now.

I’m sorry. I do apologize for this post. I don’t like to be this vulnerable, and for almost five decades I’ve pretended not to be. The truth is that this world has knocked me about a bit. It’s left its bruises, its dents, its scars – it’s left its hurt on and within me. It’s impressed its betrayals and abandonments, its cruelty and wickedness, upon my heart. It hasn’t been as wonderful as these posts have often portrayed it to be – and I haven’t been as powerful or sure as I’ve pretended to be.

There – I’ve said it.

There – the sad and unremarkable truth.

There – the corpse of my forties.

And here – the last night before fifty.