Approaching 50

I received a birthday card when I turned 40 that read: “The good thing about turning 40 is that you know that you’ll never die young.” Harsh.

Last Wednesday was my 49th birthday. Not technically a milestone birthday but sobering nonetheless.

I never thought I’d live to be this old. I used to tell people that I planned to die at 45. “Live hard, die young, leave a pretty corpse,” I’d say.

I was approaching 40 years old when I was on a sail boat some place in the South of France, and I shared my long self projected demise with my friend Debra. She said, “Maybe 45 will just represent the death of your old life and you’ll move onto something new.” (In hindsight she couldn’t have been more accurate.)

Now as I see 50 looming on the horizon, I’ve begun to take stock of my life. And much as one does with New Year’s resolutions, I’m asking myself what I want this second stage to look like. After all, the prospective corpse is not looking as pretty as I’d like so I need a plan ‘B’.

Some times I look at the skin on my hands or my naked body in a mirror and ask myself, “When did I become my father?” And on closer inspection, “When did I grow a second set of eyelids?”

Even though the current state of the economy has dramatically altered my retirement vision, I still have so very much for which to be thankful; a simple, peaceful life, loving family and friends, and so far, my health. And if I’m going to enter the second half of the game, I might want to pay a little more attention to that last item; health.

But oh how I hate exercise. That whole process of going to the gym, eating “right”, etc. I need to find something that I love to do that has a healthy side effect. Tennis? Hard on the knees. Golf? Expensive. Swimming? Fear of drowning. Bike ridding? Flat tires.

Yoga? Maybe I need to think about yoga.

And there is the 50th birthday to plan. Ideally I’d like to get a big group together and go whitewater rafting in Costa Rica. But that is probably prohibitively expensive.

So I’m open to suggestions.