Approaching Fifty

I look toward tomorrow without any thought of what may or may not happen. Caught in a stage of life that offers only the choices that appear arbitrarily, I wonder about 50. As I look at the clouds I often feel just as fleeting. It is not so much the feeling of a lack of purpose personally. It is a feeling of the ‘universal arbitrary.’ But even in this frame of mind, I believe that I have an effect on individual lives as well as life universally. It is quite a strange conundrum I find myself in.
I suppose this is what has been termed, amongst other things, mid-life crises. In many senses it is a crisis but along with the uncertainty there is a sense of peace and calm. What this is founded upon I am not sure. Maybe it is experience? Maybe it is that I have matured? Either way, it ‘s almost as though I have come to recognize and accept the fact that it is okay to hold on less tightly to the perceived control that I have over what happens. Certainly there are things in life each individual, if not controls, at least has the power and capacity to effect a measure of control over. Advancing to this aged landmark is not one of them.
There are times when it seems that life trundles along like a possum foraging at night. Or at times it is as deliberate as a three-toed-sloth chasing down a tortoise, which in turn is trying to keep up to a snail. At other times it is a lion chasing a cheetah chasing a hyena. Everything is happening with frantic speed, fear and sweat. And then there are the times when all I want to do is watch a leaf fall into a creek and float blissfully into the morning. It could also be resignedly into the sunset. Either will work.
Lately I have found that sleep is either hard to come by or it seems like such a waste of precious time. Not that it is a chore. Rather it is such a time of nothingness. It is like lost time. Nothing happened and everything happened because we do not all sleep at the same time. There are so many studies and surveys regarding sleep that I have chosen to ignore them all. In fact, I ignore all studies about all things. At one time, too little sleep was the culprit. Now our learned fellow humans are suggesting that more than eighth hours a night will shorten your life. There was a time when chocolate was the demon of all demons. Not to mention coffee. Honestly, what does it all matter?
I am not of the mindset that I wish to look young all my life. I accept unequivocally that I am going to get old and look old. I don’t have a choice so rather than fight it, submit now. Once you have done that, it is quite refreshing how accepting one can be about the inevitabilities that bracket life. Whatever death is or may be, it is nothing to be in abject fear about. By all means be uncertain. If you were not uncertain I would have to worry about you. The only requirement I have at my death is that my daughter plays Pink Floyds ‘Comfortably Numb.’ An appropriate anthem if you ask me.
In the meantime, I will continue to try and live each day reminding myself that life is too short not to be nice. Make no mistake that I fail often; my family will attest to that. But boy do I try. I try because every good thing one does, and every smile one shares, encourages another to do the same. And does our little planet not need a lot more of that? It is frustrating to me to see how we treat one another. It frustrates me more when I behave in the same fashion. Even though I speak of living admirably, Lord knows that I do fail. I become angry at the slow driver or the one who does not use his or her turn signal. I get angry at that driver who would dare to turn out in front of me.
Life has shown me, if not taught me, that those things I become most heated about are the very things of which I am most and equally guilty. Slowly but surely now, I speak less because as my dear former wife correctly observed, I do not remove one foot from my mouth and replace it with the other, my mouth is shaped like a foot. Ah, she has the wisdom and insight of the entire Confucius family. (I often wonder about that name. The etymology would suggest the word confused, yet he is considered one of history’s wisest members. Just a thought.)
Another thing about approaching 50 that causes me some pause is the fact that, other than physically, I do not feel older. I still want to cycle and play rugby. I still want to swim as once I did. But now I find I have to pace myself. When I perform manual labor I do so at a pace that is considerably less robust than twenty years ago. Forget going hiking after a soccer game. (I still think that I am a catch too by the way). I’m not sure what to make of that.
Often in life and certainly now, I have wondered about war. Idealistically, and I am an idealist, mankind will sit down and talk, rather than stand up and fight. (Well, a healthy dose of fisticuffs is not that bad. It’s when we insist on showing off our big, murderous weapons that things become gorily nasty.) I have said, and I believe this, that if women were the ‘dominant sex’, this planet and by extension, mankind, would be far better off). Women have it right because they will talk. We men just want to pick up a stick and flail away!
My daughter will be eighteen soon. The cliché of time flying by so fast is so very, very true. I often think about her first time on a horse. Within 5 minutes I had no fingernails. She was four and tiny. The horse was about 12 and horribly huge. Oh my, I did not have a good time that hour or so. Now she rides as though she were born on a horse. And boy does she boss them around. Talk about payback for those unplanned, horse conceived, and untimely rendezvous’ with gravity. (I always said she should blame Mr. Newton for ever ‘discovering’ this law of his.) Eighteen huh? I wonder if she knows just how much I love her?
I regret desperately that my marriage failed. I regret the hurt I caused and the hurt that I received. But, we are darned good friends and spend a good deal of time together. She really is quite a woman and quite the human being. Sure, all is not doughnuts and coffee but that is probably because we grew up tea drinkers. Without her, I can assure you that our daughter would not be enjoying the kind of life she has. I will say this; divorce is so much worse compared to working it out. And that is all I have to say about that.
So, onward to the half century and we will see what it brings!
A couple more years and I will be officially silver. My hair has beaten that deadline but who cares? My heart has beaten 1, 750, 000, 00 since the day I was born! Give or take a few thousand. Fifty is fifty and nothing can change that.