On the Occasion of My Semi-Centennial.

Well, I turn 50 today.

It’s the oddest thing.  I had always assumed that older people felt older. Like the qualitative difference between prepubescent children and twenty-somethings, a gap that shows “these are not the same creature.”  But no, the now-me is the same me inside as the twenty-something-me, not appreciably smarter (though more experienced) and with largely similar tastes and sense of humor.  The body is showing wear and tear, sure, but I’m not an old person as distinct from the kind of being I was as a young adult.

Or, as I’ve said several times over the past twenty years, “I’m not as old as I thought my father was when he was this age.”

I did the math the other day: My grandmother (still with us, though not entirely with us) is 93.  That means she was 43 when I was born.  In other words, in my earliest memories of my grandmother, she was my age or younger.  That blows my mind.

Of other note:  In my youth, I always thought I was going to be a novelist.  Yet here I am, 50 years old, and the longest written work I’ve finished is still The Last Christmas Gift, which is a novella at best.  I’m damned proud of the short stories I’ve written, but they’re few and far between; I don’t often feel driven to write, and I don’t have the rigidity of spine to write as a daily habit.  So I guess I’m a sometimes writer.  When I want to be.  (Hey, if weightlifters with twice the body mass and ten times the testosterone as a biological female are allowed to compete in women’s events at the Olympics, I’m allowed to consider myself some kind of writer.)

So what have I made of myself? Or more to the point, who have I made of myself?  I generally like myself, although that can vary widely; sometimes I spend days wondering why I’m so broken, and other days I wander around singing with the classic Anne of Green Gables musical, “Gee, I’m glad I’m no one else but me!” (“Classic” = “something older than I am.”)  I guess it’s good that I generally get along with myself, as I’m habitually alone in my own head more than I’m interacting with others.

Is it customary to declare “resolutions” or something similar at this milepost?  Tough.  I don’t have any intrinsic goals to declare.  I’m still just trying to figure it out, “it” being all of it.  Life, goodness, contentment vs. striving, the divine in us and the divine around us.

I’d like to grasp it all better, but I’m not willing to rush it. I’m still a young man.