It’s that time of the year – or life. I’m Fifty!

Header image credit: Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

This post isn’t quite about time travel, but about my personal 47 billion km travel along the time line.

Age is not just a number; it’s also a feeling. I’m aware of this fact with a clarity that would rival the finest diamond because I’m now a quinquagenarian; I’ve just turned 50.

The (too) big Five (uh) oh. Fifty! How did that happen? When did it happen?

OK. Breathe. Calm down. Let’s put this into perspective. The world has orbited the sun 50 times since I was born. In astronomical terms, 50 revolutions isn’t much.

But wait. The Earth has travelled 47 billion km (29.2 billion miles). That’s quite a distance. I’ve come a long way! Age 50 is a milestone, even if I’ve passed it nearly 30 billion times.

I’ve realised that the difference between being 49 and being 50 isn’t one year. It’s a day. Or overnight when I went from being a man in his forties to a fifty year old. There, I said it. “Old.” Being so many years young is nearly always a misnomer. We age and we grow old. Maybe senility or illness makes us regress and act like a kid, but we’re still old.

And being 50 sounds a lot older than being in my roaring forties. Indeed, there was barely any wind left to help me extinguish my birthday cake.

It was a family celebration, being with those who love me and with those I love so much that it hurts. One of my cards they gave me had a badge in it; a public announcement of my age. Happy to wear it at the breakfast table, but not so keen to take it outside.

Apparently I’m happy to blog about it…

The Future

I’m expecting being fifty to be tiring, especially for my finger which now needs to find the year of my birth on online forms by scrolling down and down and down. But the good news is that as time marches on, that year’s going to get even lower.

In other words, it’s never going to be better than now – so that’s pretty awesome, right?! 🙂

Paul (Age 50)

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