Posted by TemporarilyBob on October 26, 2012, at 1:57:38
In reply to Re: Psychology of aging » Dinah, posted by Phillipa on October 25, 2012, at 18:51:10
I used to joke around when I was an undergrad or teen, when someone eventually asked that stupid question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I'd say "50".
I hit 50 this July ... still not all that grown up.
I think back to undergrad and what MUST have been someone playing a practical joke. Once a month, for about three months, I got mail to my dorm room from different seminaries asking things like "Have you ever considered the contemplative life?" Comments on my (lack of a ) love life, I was thinking. Then I got the letter from AARP: "Congratulations! You're over 50 and retired, so you're receiving a free membership!"
I think back to turning 30 and all the dread I had of that ... and a much older sister saying, "When you hit 40, you'll say to yourself 'Why can't I be 30 again?' 30's easy ... think back to being 20 and ask yourself if you'd want to go through THAT again!" And that made 30 easy. So did the party for my best friend's birthday with about 20 friends, 11 days before mine, and they bring out the cake and it's decorated for MY 30th birthday, not her 27th! SURPRISE! I still am in denial that the party was really for me.
40 was a blind date ... day-time date when I was living in Manhattan. Very wonderful woman took me to Chelsea Piers, a big "sports" complex on the Hudson near the West Village and we did that bowling thing in UV light with fluorescent pins and balls and lane markers and such, then got drunk at Hogs and Heifers, the bar that inspired the movie "Coyote Ugly". Too bad we didn't click, but it was definitely the best blind date I've had and one of my best birthdays, even though I didn't spend a minute of it with someone I knew prior to that day.
50? I'm living in a sublet sharing a house with an architectural grad student and a biochem lab rat. The grad student gets home at 10:30pm from his summer job, stops by my room and asks about my day, so I tell him it's my 50th birthday. He's shocked! Him: "Why didn't you tell us?" Me: "Are you surprised?" Him: "Hell yeah!" Me: "Well, I like surprise parties...." So me and the lab rat and him go to a local brewpub, toss down a few respectable local brews and some cake with coffee-flavored ice cream (missed that on the menu -- I *detest* coffee) that was far too rich to go with the stout and the IPA I had.
Seems like year after year, milestone after milestone, the tread on the tires is wearing thin enough that it just doesn't make as big an impression in the dirt any longer. And I'm just fine with that. Sure, I have my gray hairs now, but I've earned every one and then some, and I wear'em like a badge.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
poster:TemporarilyBob
thread:1028401
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20120922/msgs/1029837.html