On turning 50

Dear FutureMe, You are turning 50 today. I know you tell people you are looking foward to it. I have chosen to look on the positive side, to focus on how confident women are in their fifties, how much they know in comparison with younger women, and how you've always imagined yourself as getting better with age. But I also know you are a little afraid. Getting older, to our younger self, never really was accompanied by illness. Now that cancer is real, well, things look a little different. I'd like to say that life is all the sweeter, but there are still the frustrations, the everyday mundane bothers that intrude into our lives. And part of those little frustrations are the ones caused by illness-- the prescriptions that must be filled, the exercise that must be done, the doctors' appointments that seem to be omnipresent on our calendar. Not what we signed up for, is it? And those aches in the knees when you bend, that's a painful reminder of how much life can change. There is Madonna, for heaven's sakes, shimmying all over the stage, when we have trouble walking down the stairs in the morning. It's enough to make a girl feel old. HOWEVER Madonna will have her frustrations as well. You know with that hard-won wisdom that everyone does. You only see yours directly. Those students looking up to you, they don't see the aches and pains you feel either. You know, though, that the greatest struggle is feeling tied down somehow in a way that you never imagined yourself feeling. The adventuress is tired, and it is hard to feel the promise of tomorrow, when it feels like there may not be so many tomorrows. But here's the thing...There do not have to be. And life does not have to be a series of high-powered adventures to be exciting and worthwhile. If you will slow down a second, you may find the truest joy sitting right in front of you. The biggest adventure may be in your head. What would it mean to you to watch, really watch, your daughter grow? What is the value of each emerging friendship? How important is an afternoon by the fire, with 2 cats in your lap? How important is it to really read that Bible? None of these things will make your resume. But they may, just may, be some of the most powerful things you do in your life. Meaning isn't generated by running around-- You know that. Meaning is generated by your ability to make connections, to see the invisable threads tying us together in ways we do not normally recognize. And that takes time, which you have been granted. Use that time. But use it in a nontraditional way. Rather than producing another product, squander it, and realize that that, in and of itself is an adventure. And please-- know that you are loved. Blessings, Your younger self