Today I turn fifty-fucking-one years old.
How did my 50th year go now that’s come to a close? I spoke a bit about that last night, but I’ll break it down again here.
Fifty was a wilder ride than I anticipated.
I felt the years. I felt the weight. I felt the fact that there were more days and years behind me than would ever be before me again. I felt the rush. I felt the hushed, icy lack of turned heads when I’d enter a restaurant. When you’re fifty you blend better into the background, and after fifty years of not blending into the background, there was wickedness and relief in that.
What might be most surprising is that I could still access the tumultuous emotions of life without having to actually go through any of them – a removed yet thrilling way of remembering and experiencing what I once thought solely the province of the young. My 50th year ran through gamut of emotional highs and lows, even as nothing extreme really even happened. In that respect, things got decidedly more exciting, merely from the shift in my own perspective and how I experienced everything. That bodes well for the next half of life.
As for this 51st birthday, I’m laying low and keeping things relatively quiet, enjoying a day in Boston and trying not to take any of the social media flowers too seriously. Fifty-one isn’t one of the big milestones anyway, though some might argue that anything over the halfway mark is worth celebrating. My own love/hate relationship with my birthday doesn’t find reconciliation one way or another – not quite that evolved yet but definitely working on it.
Anyway, have a gander at previous birthday posts, most of which feature some element of my birthday suit because I’m nothing if not a goddamned giver.
Birthday #50: A letter to myself because if you can’t do you on your birthday, what can you do?
Birthday #49: One on the cusp of many things.
Birthday #48: An uneventful year that faded to black.
Birthday #47: A real birthday suit post with only a sheet between me and the eyes of the world.
Birthday #46: A skinny-dipping party and I’d cry if I wanted to.
Birthday #45: Feeling young and fancy and free.
Birthday #44: A real suit for a birthday, and everybody hated it.
And for all the rest (because I’m tired of linking right now) check out this more comprehensive birthday suit post.
