rockin'

In a few weeks, I'll turn 51.  Let me be right upfront.  I don't like being 50.  I dug my 40's.  In fact, I couldn't wait to turn 40--but maybe I was just ready for the chaos of my 30's to be over.  But 50?  Don't like it.  I know, I know, we're supposed to be all enlightened...all "60 is the new 40!"  But you know what?  I have a feeling that slogan was thought up by advertisers and magazine writers who are probably in their 20's and 30's.  That's not to say that I don't think it frigging ROCKS to be a Baby Boomer.  We redefine every decade we pass through and I love that.

By owning up that I don't like being 50, I'm admitting that on some levels I've bought into the negative cultural messages attached to that age.  But who hasn't, at least deep down?  Turn 50 yourself before you start lecturing me on how and why I shouldn't do that.  It's a helluva lot easier said than done.

For last week's ThirdAge Blog Carnival I wrote a post called sexual heel-ing--about how sexy shoes (or boots) can influence one's self-image (even at the ripe old age of 50).  Will, my dear Nebraska blogger pal, left this comment:

When I first came to your [previous] blog, I made my first impressions on the little byline about yourself in the side bar--a woman of 50 on an island. My impression was that was cool that a quaint, sedentary woman who could have had a motor home in Phoenix chose the islands instead.

Well, you spent the next however long since then blowing my preconceived notions right out of the water. And I thank you for that. The 50 that is staring me in the face in my not too distant future looks so much cooler since knowing you.

"...a quaint, sedentary woman who could have had a motor home in Phoenix..." Wha...WHAT?!?! Okay, I admit that made me laugh.  The only woman in my family who's ever had a motor home in Phoenix was my MOTHER--and that was for a brief spell 25 years ago when she was younger than I am now.  There's hardly anything quaint about her NOW (at 71), let alone when she was in her mid-40's.  (Unless you consider attending airy-fairy retreats and helping a professional photographer friend groom future models quaint.) 

[SIDEBAR:  Although Mom and I do have a running gag about the scene in Albert Brooks' "Lost in America" where he and Julie Hagerty are driving through the night in their Winnebago.  He asks, "Where are we?"  She replies, "{something}, Arizona."  Albert says, "Let's live here--my legs are asleep."  Aside from the fact that it's a great comedic line, it cracks us up because the motor home court they end up in reminds us of the place where my mother had her motorhome parked during that sojourn in the Spring of 1980.]

Where was I?...  Oh yeah, 50.  So you see, as enlightened and aware as Will is (and if you don't believe me, just read his blog), even he bought into the "50 is old" myth.  It's hard not to do in this youth-obsessed culture.  It's even harder when you have a boyfriend who's only 42.  (Who knew I'd reach an age where "42" would make me sigh with longing at how YOUNG it sounds?)

I feel like I'm being shoved into my 50's kicking and screaming, whining, "I don't WANNA be 50!"  Not because I even look that age necessarily, but because of what connotations that number conjures up for people.

There are bloggers who aren't that much older than me who refer to themselves as elderbloggers.  Dude.  In my camp?  I don't plan to be "elder" until I'm like 90.  By 80 I might grudgingly own up to "senior."  Even the fact that ThirdAge is a site dedicated to readers "over 40" is a bit disturbing to me.  I read the ThirdAge blog regularly, but seldom find posts that really resonate with me. 

Am I in denial?  Am I being juvenile?  Am I unwilling to accept the responsibilities of a middle-aged person?  Maybe none, maybe all of the above.  All I know is this:  I don't feel 50 (however the hell I imagined in my youth it would feel), so I refuse to act 50.  That means I'm still gonna wear low-rider pants and short skirts and sexy boots.

Jeffrey and I have often talked about how fun it would be to chuck everything, buy a Winnebago and tour the country.  But financially I don't foresee that happening anytime in our near future.  We wouldn't be doing it because we'd feel "quaint" or "sedentary"--we'd do it as if we were going on a rock tour.  [Appropros of nothing, Jerry Seinfeld's got a great classic line that when his folks moved to Florida they started eating their meals earlier and earlier...until pretty soon they were eating breakfast the night before.]  But we do dream of a Winnebago someday.  Even if it takes us until we're in our 80's, someday we're going to travel around this great country and go wherever we want and do whatever we want.  And when we do, I hope it's not as a couple of old, slow-moving geezers--I hope we're able to do it as versions of our current selves who happen to have a few more gray hairs and wrinkles.  Maybe I'll have given up my sex-kitten shoes by then; then again, maybe not.  'Cause you know what they say:  Don't come knockin' if the Winnebago's rockin'...  :)