"Fifty Makes You Think"

"Fifty makes you think. Thirty makes you morose, and forty makes you panic, but fifty makes you think. Half a century, and what is my life? Does it resemble anything I dreamed at sixteen, or expected at twenty or hoped at twenty-five? What am I doing here?...I thought of climbing to the top of a high mountain in Tibet to consult a wise man, but I like vacations where there is indoor plumbing and vegetation....Maybe I'd been missing a great fundamental truth....Well, come to find out, I had been missing something..."

So comments the main character of a great little book I read last week (The Route by Gale Sears). She finds herself searching for "something missing" in her life and, as a result, takes a route delivering lunches to home bound senior citizens each Thursday. The experiences she has along the way help her to find meaning in her life and recognize that, though her life did not turn out like she "dreamed" or "expected" or "hoped", it has been a life worth living.

Now, I didn't mean for this to be a book review. Rather, I wanted to comment on life in my fifties. Don't tell Seth I'm openly telling you I'm in my fifties. He has a thing about age and if I'm 53, well, I guess we know about where he is! Anyway, as I read The Route, I was prompted to ponder on my life and how I feel about where I've been and what I've done and how I've gone about it all. And, just for the record, I have to say I'm perfectly happy in my fifties.

I've never really felt one way or another about my age. Birthdays come and go. Life moves on. Turning 30 or 40 or 50 was not daunting or shattering for me. Age doesn't really have much to do with everyday living of life. We all, from the day we're born to the day we die, have things to learn and things to do and things to avoid and things to conquer and things to share and things to master. We all laugh and cry, succeed and fail, serve and are served. We all feel hope, fear, hunger, cold, anger, relief, curiosity, regret, peace, sorrow, joy, etc. Each stage of our existence is filled with experiences and choices that lead us into the next stage. And time goes by.

Our choices, of course, determine our direction in life. I suppose that it is a look at those choices and where I have "ended up" that have been the biggest part of my pondering over the last week. I've thought back through the years. I've remembered people and places and things that have taught me and helped me and hurt me and changed me. I've laughed and cried a bit. I've found many things I am proud of and a few things to regret. But mostly I have discovered a profound gratitude for each day of my 53 years of life. I wouldn't go back to 20 or 30 or 40 even if I could. I am who I am because of where I've been and how I've lived.

If "fifty makes you think" then think this: Be glad to have those fifty years and be grateful for every day that you get to live this incredible journey we call life. All too often, life is cut short. Hopes and dreams and plans cannot be realized. If you've passed fifty, you are one of the lucky ones.........like me.