Both Oars In Swiftly fifty

Apr 29, 2011

I must admit, I don’t feel any real apprehension about turning fifty, which I will do in about three years. I have seen six siblings, three sister-in-laws, three brother-in-laws and scores of colleagues and friends cross the great Rubicon with little or no psychological or physical damage.

In fact, being born just at the end of the Baby Boomer generation, I have had the advantage of observing the largest collectively labeled generation — a journey that has been chronicled by the media and entertainment industry ad nauseam. Just think of John Travolta in “Wild Hogs.”

Regardless of my steel for aging, I have decided to get prepared for the trip across the divide between youth and old age. My decision is motivated by my recent realization that I cannot remember turning sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one, thirty or even forty. I am bothered by my amnesia of these rites of passage far more than I am about aging itself. How can I have breezed through those events without a memory of them?

It is not that my life lacks memorable moments. I remember lecturing at my Confirmation in 8th grade. I remember getting married. I remember the births of my four children. I remember my ordination as a permanent deacon and my graduation from Providence College with my masters. But, I don’t remember any of the traditionally important birthdays.

I am not sure why I am bothered by passing all these major age thresholds without any particular memories, but I have promised myself, “Never, never, never, never again!” To make sure, I have a created a detailed, three year plan to prepare for my fiftieth.

Year one: I am going to get back in shape. As I lamented a few weeks ago, I have recently been losing the battle of the bulge. I am fat, again! Regardless of the fact that I could now authentically deliver the line “Fifty years of pain for a moment’s glory” from Harvey Firari’s “Patio II,” a line which I faked and intermittently botched in high school, I am going to work my rugby abused, aching joints one more time in deference to my waist. When I am fifty, my waist is only going to be 36!

I am also going to take up yoga. I cannot believe how inflexible I have become over the years. The other day I caught myself coveting my octogenarian parents’ shoe horn. As my joints have frozen up, I have also noticed that I get cranky more easily. I am convinced not being able to bend physically causes grumpiness. I am going to be limber and happy by my fiftieth.

Year two: I am going to read like a fiend. I am going to devour 50 classics — one a week for a year, excluding the weeks containing Christmas and Easter. I am not entering my second act without more reference material to reflect on. One person’s life, no matter how exciting, could not possibly provide enough interesting material for prolonged rumination in one’s twilight years. Before my eyes go and my mind’s ability to concentrate declines, I am going to learn a few more things from the likes of Hemingway and Voltaire.

Year three: The Mustang will also turn fifty in 2014. If my son will lend me his, I plan on turning 50 in a Mustang GT 5.0 while driving with my wife to some wonderful Americana site. I am thinking of Lebanon, Kansas which claims to be the mid-point of the US. There is a marker there. Maybe that can be my half-way marker as well. I also hope there is a hotel with a comfortable bed suitable for the recently gone over the hill.

Some will argue that sixty is the new fifty. But, that’s just not true. Even with better health and nutrition, few people live to a hundred, let alone beyond it. Fifty is still the Lebanon, Kansas of life. So, I am getting ready for this milestone. My soon to-be-more-wizened advice to the young, on whom, I agree more and more, youth is largely wasted, is to celebrate your early big birthdays well — fifty comes swiftly.

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