Halftime Report

So here I am today, the big Five Oh. Doesn't feel any different. I remember the hearing the adage "Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age," but I was told this weekend that fifty is The New Forty (or even The New Twenty according to one friend), so we'll see how it all works out.

 

I mentioned this to a few friends when the subject of milestone birthday crises came up -- "OMG you're fifty are you freaking?" -- but my big crisis year was actually when I turned 29. I always thought that my freakout had something to do with it being my last year in my twenties, one more year and it's all over etc, but looking back now I wonder if it wasn't something else: I remember at that time realizing, after years of physical inactivity, that I was fat and flabby and falling apart -- I'd been exhausted by the minor physical labor of a plant inspection not too long before, while my 70-year-old boss had breezed through it, and I bought my first bike only a month before my birthday. I suspect that there were other things in the air too, since I'd been out of school and into my new career, and independent living in a new area, for about two years; I liked these things, but I wasn't doing much with my life other than working, and I was starting to realize there was more to life and if I didn't find it before time passed I'd miss it. That's pretty much guaranteed to bring on an early "midlife crisis."

 

So anyway, my life changed over the next few years, and my thirties were much better than my twenties, and much richer, and things continued that way until about five years ago, when I met Anne and my life got richer still. And now...

 

By the way: rode last night (towpath), and may ride again tonight (Sals?) if the weather holds. Spring is definitely here.