Fifty was the only birthday that bothered me.  Thirty and forty had passed seemingly unnoticed, but fifty was officially “getting up there”.  A person should probably be putting a bucket list together by this age.  I have a few things on mine, most of which I have been able to move to the done list.  That is one of the great things about getting “older”.  What other people think doesn’t seem to matter so much, and  the absurdity of some of your bucket list items doesn’t stop you from trying to accomplish them. The leaps of faith become easier each time you jump.  Somehow you just learn to trust that the money will be there for that trip of a lifetime.  You learn to trust that your ship won’t sink or your plane will stay in the air.  By this age, your children, if you have any, are more or less on their own, so the scenarios of not being there for them aren’t so scary anymore.

After all is said and done, fifty plus isn’t so bad.  Gray hair, wrinkles, and a slower metabolism can be fought with constant vigilance, if indeed those things bother you.  But not taking yourself or the world so seriously is a nice trade-off for the loss of the outward appearance of youth.  You can be younger at heart when the inhibitions go.  Laugh at yourself and your foibles.  I do wish I could learn to like exercise though, but hey, tomorrow is another day and chocolate is a gift from God.  One of the things you should do every day is to be thankful and enjoy the gifts that God and Mother Nature provide, right?

Today, I will be ferocious.  Maybe I will practice roller skating and burn off some of those brownie calories I had for supper last night (and breakfast this morning).   Maybe, when I get good enough again, I will start my own roller derby team for women over fifty.  We will call it Osteoferocious.  We will be a force to be reckoned with (although, I would request a sea of balls in the center of the rink and padded guard rails).  I hear that there is a young local roller derby gal that sports a mohawk.  I’ll have to draw the line there though.  I just don’t have the ears to pull off a mohawk.