Another Birthday... apparently 50 was really just the beginning of the “Journey.” The road after 50 has been quieter, more self-discovery than that year of self-promotion. It's been 3 years since we talked (well I did the talking and you did the listening) and for some reason the occasion of my 53rd birthday compelled me to write a short "where is she now edition." This is not a jump back into the blogosphere... More like an “I'm still here and I sort of miss this” thing.
53 is such an odd birthday... No fanfare, nothing notable; like somehow we have to wait until 55 for it to matter again. On the flip side, you can quietly slip into the next year without much attention (except in the Facebook world where every birthday counts and the number rarely matters). It’s strange that as much as we may tell ourselves that the messages on our “wall” don’t matter, each one really does make me smile. I’m sure I’ve missed a few of yours this year and I’m sorry if I did. I’ve been more of a Facebook observer for a while now... keeping up with you while staying under the radar. I’ve been a little disconnected in my non-virtual world too. I think I needed a little time out;maybe we all need one sometimes. It wasn’t intentional. Busy weeks turn into months, long days that leave no time or energy to pick up the phone or make plans. And just when we think that the calm is approaching, life throws us a curveball and we head for cover again.
I started to enjoy the quiet. Solitude is different than loneliness. I watched less and less TV and almost never picked up the phone at night. I admit I still played plenty of Candy Crush but it’s almost meditative for me. Really, those silly candies dropping and exploding and my brain is almost Zen-like empty. Winter arrived. I have always had a tendency to hibernate, this one was no exception. Cold and dark and snowy are less and less appealing as I head deeper into the 50’s. Too young to retire to warm climates and no kids to build snowmen and make hot chocolate for. The sheer joy of watching the morning news for a snow day no longer exists. Walking the dog is an adventure of please hurry up its freezing out here and don’t poop there I have to get knee deep to pick it up. I needed to snap out of it in a big way. I thought about writing again then, during the journey to 50 it was the writing that saved me and connected me. Sending all (well most) of my thoughts out to the universe kept them from banging around in my head. But this time it was different, I felt like I didn’t have anything to say.
So I made a different plan. I focused on things to look forward to. We signed a lease for a summer beach house... July at the shore was dream that I could visualize. I booked tickets for all 5 of us to celebrate my mama Nona’s 100th birthday in Boca. I spent a few perfect days in the sand in the Dominican Republic. This was good; I was heading towards life not hiding from it. But I hit a bump in the road, one of those damn potholes of reality that grab us when we are least expecting it. Everything is fine, the details don’t matter, I just hug all the people I love a little tighter these days. Enough said.
Spring arrived; another birthday was in view, time to get back on track. I needed to be outside, to stay busy, so I started walking again (I’d been spending most of my sweaty time in the basement on the elliptical). It started silly enough with an App that counted my steps, 10,000 a day – roughly 5 miles. I got a little obsessive (that can happen) and wouldn’t sleep until I got them all in. It felt good, and then I thought it could feel better. What if walking could be running, what if I could I run a 5K before my 53rd birthday? Mind you in my first 52 years I ran upstairs, I ran errands, I ran to the store (in each case the word “ran” was just an expression not an actual measure of pace). So I bought new sneakers and used last year’s birthday gift card to Lulu lemon for the right gear (the appropriate clothes are an inspirational part of any plan). And I downloaded another App – Couch to 5K – or C25K to be cooler. The first few weeks I ran back and forth on my street, first at 90 second intervals, then 2 minutes, and if you think that’s easy for a non-runner it was torturous and I thought I was in good shape. It got less awful and maybe I secretly started to look forward to it. I bought more stuff, a running belt to hold my phone, new headphones that stayed in place, running sunglasses (The Ray Bans weren’t cutting it). I was starting to feel like an actual runner. I treated myself to the non-free version of Spotify (if my kids can have it then why can’t I) and I learned what playlists kept me moving. I started to believe that this was possible. I moved from just my street to the whole neighborhood, to the reservoir trails... holy cr*p I was really doing this. The App was supposed to take me fully off the couch in 8 weeks but I was an unexpected overachiever and crossed the finish line early in living color.Literally, it was a color run, with the help of a 20 something friend who let me keep up with her the whole way. It felt amazing, no other word to describe it.
I spent July at the beach. Got to run a lot of miles along the coastline and spent some really special time with family. That little cottage was like my own Field of Dreams... if you rent it they will come. It gets harder and harder to make those times happen and this was everything, and more, that I needed it to be. Every dark winter day faded away with the tide. There is magic in that salty air.
Fast forward, it’s my birthday once again. 53 is fine. A quieter birthday makes sense after a quieter year. Let’s hope the one ahead brings more accomplishments and fewer stumbling blocks. I thank you for all the birthday wishes and for listening again after all this time. Xoxo
