50

I should have brought glasses with me.  I have a pair of readers in every room of the house except this one. It’s lame not to be able to see clearly at any time you want without an apparatus on your face.

Now being well into my 50th trip around the sun, I’ve acquired a little different prospective of my life.  I feel more settled into it, into my age.  There is something remarkable about being a half century old, the fact that I made it this far for starters.  How many people in the world die before the age of 50?  Making the turn into these later years of your life is something to have gratitude for and not something to take in like a burden.  And really, what is a burden in this life?  Sickness?  Poverty?  Old age?  Heart break?  Is anything really a burden or can we look at it all from a different angle and find something positive about the experience.  It’s all a matter of perception and how happy one would like to be.

I look at pictures of myself 20, 30 years ago and in my mind, I still look the same.  Then I look in a mirror and I see that my face is rounder and droopier, the underside of my eyes puffy and the crow’s feet jut out the corners as if they are racing towards the sides of my face.  My beard speckled gray, well actually doused in grey hair, and at times when its closely shaven I feel as if I look like an old, weathered alcoholic, who hasn’t shaved in two days.  The kind of guy you see buying a pint of whisky at the end of a workday or before work has even started.  When I look in the mirror, I see my age and I am grateful for it.

I can be an older man now, distinguished some might say.  Slower in my movements, paying more attention to noises my body makes, taking more naps without guilt.  I can lean into eating better to keep myself nourished and a tad bit healthier than I was 20 or 30 years ago.  I can look to the 20somehtings and shake my head while I mumble about how soft they are these days and why the hell are these young men wearing what looks to be woman’s shorts?  I get to be sweet on my waitress or the clerk behind the counter at Trader Joes and be seen as a sweet older man and not the sex crazed fool taking a shot at every woman he finds attractive, which is most all women.  I am being more diligent at planning for my retirement, something I should have taken into account at 30, taken way more serious at 40, so at 50 some of my choices would not have to be made out of financial responsibility to my retirement.  And to be honest, I never thought I would retire.  I forever thought I would work until my body told me I couldn’t anymore.  But all of that is neither here nor there now, I’ve only the present to live in and I am grateful that I am trying to build something to live off if I live long enough to do so.

Now being on the other side of 50 I ask this question periodically, do people find love in these later years?  I wonder what the statistics are for people over 50 getting into relationship’s that last to the end of their days.  The odds on falling in love and getting married at 20 are much greater I’m sure.  At 20 we are so much more willing to risk anything, we don’t know the value of going slow, nor do we have much to hold on to.  We are more then willing to compromise and adapt to our partners ways.  We are in love and that feeling is so bold and bright, we could careless as to what we need to change to make it work, we just change it.  We go in elated and clueless, how wonderful that time is, the times of first loves.

To think if we went into all loves like that, laying caution by the wayside and going forth into the unknown.  If we didn’t shelter our feelings, pull up the past trespasses and use them to mediate the present, if we were willing to give more than receive, if we were willing not to react or live in fear.  Maybe I am speaking for myself, but I highly doubt that.  I mean to move someone into your space after being alone for so long, after having all the control, the say so, the independence, being the president, mayor and CEO of your own little world.  It could be difficult for some.

I think back to my last relationship and the reaction I got after moving in my couch and tv.  She walked in the door and had to sit down; she was speechless.  There was no grand smile, no hugs and kisses to celebrate the moment, there was a fear in her eyes, uncertainty. 

Around that time, we had decided on moving in together and that I would start bringing my stuff down to her place, I just didn’t show up on that afternoon with some of my things.  This was all planned with no specific date on bringing things, just that I would.  It took her a bit to settle into the reality of me moving in, to see her space change, to lose that control or independence or the security of being alone.  She was 45 and I was 48, and we both had settled into our own ways of living alone.

I had no fear of moving in and leaving the life I had built for over 25 years; I knew the life ahead of me was worth all that I was walking away from.  I have learned in the last 50 years of triumph and failure that finding someone like she was to me, there was no reason not to walk boldly into the unknown.  I was 46 when we met, and I thought that this would be the love that was going to last till the end of my days.  Needless to say, I was mistaken.

Now 4 years grown and 50, I can apricate what I went through with her, as devastating as it was to my heart, it was worth it.  To rebound from a love so deep at such an older age was not easy for me and in times of bitter loneliness it still haunts me. 

What have I learned of relationships and love over all the years, is that I’ve learned it doesn’t matter how they cut the carrots and the only true love someone can have for another, is unconditional love.  You must love all the parts, the neurosis, the quarks, the fears, the insecurities, the crazy, the selfish, all the fucked-up character defects we tend to live in at times.  You must love all these things, even in the smallest way, you must accept these things on some level, or you will never be happy with that person.  I loved it all with her, I didn’t always like it, but I loved all the things.

50...  I sit here in my little meditation/writing loft trying to get comfortable in my head once again.  There have been many times in my life when I woke from a dream like state of mind, living blindly, and wondering where I have been.  Times when I have not been conscious of who I was or how I was acting, times when life passed me by at breakneck speed as I counted minutes and got lost in reels. 

I know at one time I thought that if I ever made it this far, I would have wisdom beyond anything I ever knew.  A knowledge of life so profound that I could almost see the results of all the choices I was bound to make.  There would be no mistakes or missteps, I would have it all figured out.  And even when the men in my life, older than me, showed up at 50 with an empty bag of peanuts and horror stories of their choices, I still thought that would never be me, oh how mistaken I was.  I won’t plan on it but I’m sure, I’m positive, that I’ll be holding that empty bag of peanuts at least 3 more times, if not 30 more – if I get to live to the ripe old age of 80. 

Life is about making mistakes and going forth.  It’s about making the same mistakes again and again and going forth.  It’s about fall down 7 times and get up 8.  It’s about being great and being foolish.  It’s about risking your safety and sanity for the best and the worst ideas.  It’s about falling in and out of love and vowing never to do it again or until the next soul sweeps you off your feet.  It’s about smelling flowers and growing gardens, living in every moment you get to be a part of. 

I’ve had so many amazing things happen to me in my 50 years on this earth, met so many amazing people, loved so many beautiful women, had so many ups and downs I lost count by the age of 13.  I experienced loss and heartbreak; I’ve hurt people in ways I never thought I would and for some of them I can never make it right.  I’ve cried myself to sleep more times than I’d like to admit and woke to some of the most dismal days.  But I continued to press forth, cuz beauty and wonder and joy were just around the corner.  Sunrises and sunsets painting the sky and my life in a magnificent array of colors.

50 is a stepping-stone to a more fruitful life, it is an age I get to experience with wonder and gratitude.  I think of all the souls who didn’t make it this far, and the ones who have that are trapped in samsara.  I think of the freedom I have at this very moment, how fortunate am I to being living here and now.  To be present.  To be able to look back on my life with very little shame, guilt and regret.  50 is more than I could have ever hoped for.