Yes, I’m turning 50.
(I am only going to use gifs of people who are also turning 50 this year in this post.)
I’m turning 50 in 44 days, but who’s counting?
So, I’m turning 50. So what? It fucking sucks, that’s what. This is bullshit. Turning 40 didn’t bother me. I had a busy job, 2 little kids and I found myself unexpectedly pregnant. I celebrated my 40th birthday with morning sickness. But because of that, I didn’t feel old. How could I feel old when I was pregnant? But 50? That is something else entirely.
No matter what my optimist boyfriend (who will also be 50 this next year) says, there is no universe in which 50 is not middle aged. I am middle aged, and that is if I live to be 100 years old, which I doubt because I do not have old people genes. My longest living grandparent died at 74.
How did this even happen? Time passes so quickly. I swear it feels like I am still a kid in my brain. I remember my grandmother saying that when she was in her last year of life and dying of congestive heart failure, she said, “I still think like I did when I was young, but my body got old.” What a mind fuck time is. It is a mind fuck I tell you.
A friend of mine and I were texting today about some stupid woman that I need to unfriend on FB because #1. We aren’t really friends and I don’t like her much and #2. Everything she says offends me. We determined that she thinks she knows everything because she is 40. By the time you are 50, you know you don’t know shit. Plus everyone else knows you don’t know shit, especially your kids.
If you don’t believe me, you are still 40.
(I know, I know, when you are 40 you are sure you know everything, trust me on this.)
It was just a few days ago that I had my big realization that I am going to be 50 in 44 days. I freaked out and stomped around the house. My kids were trying to console me and saying that 50 was not old. Then the little one nailed me. She said,
“I sure hope I’m married when I’m 50, Mommy.”
I said, “I hope that for you too, little one.”
This weekend I have been off kid duty and have been alone in my misery to consider how I am going to cross over into my 50’s, as well as binge watch Orange is the New Black. I may throw myself a party and just embrace the shit out of being 50. I’m thinking of inviting people from all walks of my life, having Al come in, letting people bring kids (since I want my kids there on my birthday this year since last year they were in England), just keep it low key, a making margaritas kind of fun. I want to laugh as I turn 50. That is my goal. And maybe dance a little.
I may even twerk. Just to prove I still can.
** In the writing of this article I did encounter a whole other boat load of celebrities that are also turning 50 this year, i.e. Teri Hatcher, Melissa Gilbert, Russell Crowe, Wynona Judd, Calista Flockhart, Janeane Garofalo, David Spade, John Lequizamo, Courtney Love, Eddie Vedder (still hot), Lenny Kravitz (still hot), Stephen Colbert (LOVE), Elle MacPherson, Wanda Sykes and about a billion more. We were a big graduating class, apparently. Now we are all old. Sucks.
Turning 50 was hard. I thought 30 was bad, but I turned 50 seven weeks after my husband left me for someone else (and also because he’s an a**hat). I think the only way to do it is with a sense of humor — and a goal. My goal is to save enough of my pennies for a neck lift.
In the meantime, liquor helps.
Birthdays are loaded, and birthdays that end with a zero are super loaded. Maybe that’s why people often get loaded on their birthday. 🙂
I hope that you do celebrate the heck out of your birthday, with Al, the kids, lots of friends, and a margarita or two. From my angle, you have so much to celebrate: you are so alive and vibrant and sassy; you’ve turned divorce (boo! hiss!) into an arrangement that is thoughtful and pretty peaceful (hurrah!); you’re in love with someone who loves you back and brings out the best in you; and your kids are doing well. I know it’s not perfect, but as far as I can tell, it’s never perfect. 🙂 Pretty damn good is still awesome, though!
My 40th birthday sucked. My marriage was crumbling, and I was in a very bad cancer scare, scheduling yet another surgery blah blah blah. Clearly I lived through that, but I vowed then that I would have an AWESOME 50th birthday to make up for the utter suckiness of my 40th. I’m only a few years behind you, so perhaps less annoying than a 40 year old but more annoying than a 55 year old. lol
As for middle aged – I can’t get my head around it. How does this happen to nice people like us? 🙂
Happy birthday, beautiful lady. You have good things coming! xoxo
I’m going to cheer you up: I will always be one year and ten months older than you.
Well, all I can say is wait until you turn 65. Yes, I am 65 and I feel young, thankfully I look young and I act young. I don’t know how it all happened so quickly but the other day I looked at a photo that I took almost FORTY YEARS AGO! When I shared it on Facebook, some kind people said I haven’t changed that much. It isn’t because I diligently defy and refuse to surrender to age. Thanks for the perspective of a 50-year old. 🙂
Well, all I can say is wait until you turn 65. Yes, I am 65 and I feel young, thankfully I look young and I act young. I don’t know how it all happened so quickly but the other day I looked at a photo that I took almost FORTY YEARS AGO! When I shared it on Facebook, some kind people said I haven’t changed that much. It isn’t because I diligently defy and refuse to surrender to age. Thanks for the perspective of a 50-year old. 🙂
You can twerk? Chick, you rock. I grew up dancing and was a dance teacher and I can’t twerk. wth?? I’m almost 42 and I KNOW I don’t know shit. Where does that LEAVE me?
Child Support Needs Reform
In California, Child Support is sometimes just disguised alimony. I have joint legal and physical custody of two boys with 50/50 time. I still have to pay thousands each month because I make more money. I make more money because I made different choices in my life than my ex. I also have different spiritual and political beliefs, a different education, and many other differences that my children are exposed to — I shouldn’t be penalized for the economic difference, just as shouldn’t be penalized for my skin color or for not being an athiest.
I understand the state incentive to avoid public support for children and I believe that it should be both parents responsibility to keep children off of the public dole, but I don’t think a parent should be required to pay more than the state requires of itself. If the state can calculate the amount of assistance a child should receive based on income — then that should be the limit of any one parents liability under any circumstances. If thats too low, then our state should be paying more as well. Anything more than that is just playing Robin Hood, Taxation without Representation, and Providing Monetary Incentives to break up families and encourage politics with children for monetary game.
Like Kevin below, I also took on the debt to preserve the (underwater) family home so my children could have as much routine as I could provide. I also did not initiate the separation (though I am thankful for it). The person I married would not have taken money from me with equal parenting and in fact ridiculed those that didn’t carry their own weight.
I am not broke because of the payments, but I will say for sure that it lowers the quality of life for both my children and myself and will affect their entire future. They will not be able to have the best eduation that I would have been able to provide — that money is spent instead on a better wardrobe for their mother.
Child Support Needs Reform
In California, Child Support is sometimes just disguised alimony. I have joint legal and physical custody of two boys with 50/50 time. I still have to pay thousands each month because I make more money. I make more money because I made different choices in my life than my ex. I also have different spiritual and political beliefs, a different education, and many other differences that my children are exposed to — I shouldn’t be penalized for the economic difference, just as shouldn’t be penalized for my skin color or for not being an athiest.
I understand the state incentive to avoid public support for children and I believe that it should be both parents responsibility to keep children off of the public dole, but I don’t think a parent should be required to pay more than the state requires of itself. If the state can calculate the amount of assistance a child should receive based on income — then that should be the limit of any one parents liability under any circumstances. If thats too low, then our state should be paying more as well. Anything more than that is just playing Robin Hood, Taxation without Representation, and Providing Monetary Incentives to break up families and encourage politics with children for monetary game.
Like Kevin below, I also took on the debt to preserve the (underwater) family home so my children could have as much routine as I could provide. I also did not initiate the separation (though I am thankful for it). The person I married would not have taken money from me with equal parenting and in fact ridiculed those that didn’t carry their own weight.
I am not broke because of the payments, but I will say for sure that it lowers the quality of life for both my children and myself and will affect their entire future. They will not be able to have the best eduation that I would have been able to provide — that money is spent instead on a better wardrobe for their mother.