Hello, it's me

Hello and welcome to my blog. Please make yourself at home.

Let me introduce myself. I’m a writer for a large Midwest university, a husband, the father of two college-age children and a half-century old. I’m proud and happy to share about the first three. The last one? Well, I’m still trying to figure out what it means and how I got here so fast.

I’m hoping that this online journal will help me make sense of getting older.

A blog about aging? Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, no, we’re going to get one boring story about the ‘good old days’ after another.” Let me assure you that that isn’t my intention. When you get to be my age a certain amount of looking back is normal, but in this space I want to look forward as much as possible. Or, at least, look at things as they are today.

No one wants to talk about, much less think about, growing old. I certainly hadn’t given the topic a lot of thought until I woke up one day and realized I was 50.

For the first time a birthday bothered me. I remember being excited at turning 20. I’d entered adulthood! Thirty was thrilling, with child rearing and the joy parenthood brings. Becoming 40 wasn’t so bad because I’d finally started to yield the benefits of many years of hard work. But 50? What did that milestone birthday mean? Aching joints, an empty nest and an invitation to join AARP? It didn’t sound very inviting.

Friends and family tried telling me 50 was no big deal. “You’re only as old as you feel”; “You’re not getting older; you’re getting better”; “Age is just a number”; “Fifty is the new 40” – they repeated all the usual lines. But somehow it didn’t help. While it may be true that life doesn’t end at 50, youth certainly does. There’s no way around it: When you cross over from 49 to 50 things change. Perceptions are different. No one who hears the word “young” imagines a guy with graying hair and crow’s feet who’s midway to triple digits on the age-o-meter.

Instead, they imagine – well, OLD.

The realization of 50 brought with it mixed emotions. While I was happy to be entering the so-called “golden years,” I grieved my exit from youth. I wasn’t sure whether to discuss my feelings openly with friends and family or keep them bottled up inside so as not to appear a candidate for psychotherapy. Unsure what to do, I decided to follow a middle-of-the-road strategy: I’d write about my experiences. That’s where this blog comes in.

Hugo

Exactly what I’ll write about from post to post, I can’t say. I’m sure each new day will provide material. I suspect there will be humor, introspection, poignancy, pontification and regular, everyday reflection. Feel free to leave comments/suggestions/criticisms.

Maybe by putting my thoughts into words I’ll get a handle on this aging thing. Perhaps somewhere along the line I’ll even view advancing age with the same gusto as French author and statesman Victor Hugo, who said that 40 is the old age of youth and 50 is the youth of old age. Hugo also said, “When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.”

Vic should have stopped while he was ahead.