By Teri Blair
This spring I turn 50.
The cleaning on my mind these days is an internal one. 50 is a significant marker, one that won’t be ignored. I saw Bonnie Raitt in concert the year she turned 50. She was playing the Grandstand at the Minnesota State Fair. She called out to the women in the audience, “Don’t be afraid to turn 50! It’s great!” And I could see she meant it, too—not just trying to buoy herself or us up. That was 11 years ago, and I was still in my 30s. 50 seemed like ages away. But it stuck with me. Her attitude.
I went to a 50th birthday party once for a woman who had a ritual to drop everything in her life that had held her back. It was done with drumming and shouting and people. Powerful stuff. She was brave and she made an announcement to her herself that she was turning a corner. A big one.
I don’t feel bad about turn 50. Mainly. There are things in my life I’m not satisfied with, but I don’t suppose that will every change. There’s some sort of release happening inside. A knowing that I don’t have all the time in the world. And because I don’t, I think about spring cleaning, and what needs to go and what needs to be aired out or left behind or turned over to the garbage heap. I don’t have my internal spring cleaning list completed, but it’s formulating. I don’t turn 50 until May 5th, so I’ve got some time.
I’m not sad about youth being over. That sounds bold and so against the grain of our culture, doesn’t it? I want to be healthy and strong. I want to take care of myself. But I don’t want to be 20 or 30 anymore. Nor do I want to pretend that I am. Nor do I want to watch someone half my age for clues about how I should live my life.
I am watching older women now. Elderly women. They seem far more interesting to me. I met one this month named Gladys—an artist/writer who has made it in the art world. She moves quietly and humbly through life. She listens well. She always seems grounded. Clearly, she had done her spring cleaning.
-Related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC – SPRING CLEANING (HOMEMADE CLEANING REMEDIES). Also related to posts: PRACTICE — Spring Cleaning — 10min by QuoinMonkey, PRACTICE — SPRING CLEANING — 10min by Bob Chrisman, WRITING TOPIC — CLEANLINESS, and Wanda Wooley — The Lean Green Clean Machine.
[NOTE: SPRING CLEANING was a Writing Topic on red Ravine. Frequent guest writer Teri Blair joined QuoinMonkey in doing a Writing Practice on the topic.]
I threw myself a big party when I turned 50, oh those many years ago. I like being older and caring less about whether I’m right or wrong. I just am.
I like rituals of turning significant ages like the ones ending in “zero” and will have a special party for the year I turn 60 (if I make it).
I will say that after 55 I have noticed that I no longer think of death as something years off in the future, but as a very real possibility. Odd, how all those years I didn’t think of it much except when people died, but now I realize I won’t live forever.
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Bob,
That’s one of the great things about age, isn’t it? You just care less about a whole bunch of stuff. Liberating.
What did you do for your 50th birthday party? I’m on the hunt for ideas.
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Teri, I threw a party at my apartment complex clubhouse and invited fifty people who had impacted my life in the past or impacted it in the present. I sent invitation to people who lived on the coasts. I had most of the show up for a party of dancing, drinking and eating. I gave a short speech about why I had invited them and how I would never have made it to fifty without them. I had a super time.
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Bob,
Oh…I like the 50 people idea. Clever! I may make a list of 50 people just to see who I’d come up with. It will be interesting to see who gets left off the list, too.
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I read this, Teri, the day it was published (I subscribe to the posts via email) and have been wanting to comment ever since. We were born in the same year, so I too turn 50 this year. Your piece resonated, and I especially loved where it led you:
Nor do I want to watch someone half my age for clues about how I should live my life.
I am watching older women now. Elderly women. They seem far more interesting to me.
I’m with you on that! And even though I will always be a young spirit (and by that I mean, mostly irreverant and immature) I do feel the weight of the years on me. And it’s not a bad weight to feel. It keeps me grounded and strong.
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Teri, this was my fave paragraph in your Writing Practice;
I’m not sad about youth being over. That sounds bold and so against the grain of our culture, doesn’t it? I want to be healthy and strong. I want to take care of myself. But I don’t want to be 20 or 30 anymore. Nor do I want to pretend that I am. Nor do I want to watch someone half my age for clues about how I should live my life.
Turning 50 should be a celebration. We have lived half a century! But in US culture more and more, it is youth that is celebrated. I’m hoping the aging Boomers change all that!
Turning 50 proved to be a time of celebration for me. And a time of letting go. It was a HUGE transition period. It seems like a good thing to do a symbolic spring cleaning. I look forward to seeing how you choose to celebrate. Every decade that passes is a big deal. One thing that definitely happened for me — I knew that I had more time behind me than I had ahead of me. It impacted life choices in a big way. Thanks for writing with me on red Ravine!
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When I was 40 or so, I noticed women my age had stopped competing. It was such a marked difference from what I had felt from other females up until then. More cooperation, less grasping after crumbs.
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