“I feel old” is a cliché. Let’s say this: 50 feels like a peak after which instead of fighting upwards I’m going to be coasting downwards. Sometimes it’ll feel like a great coast… sometimes it’ll feel like hurtling and not so good… sometimes it’ll feel like “downhill” in a good way, sometimes a bad way. But downhill it’ll be.
But there I go living in the future again. I am still firmly FORTY-SOMETHING.
“Forty”. Ugh, such an ugly word. “Fifty” doesn’t have the bad connotation. Honestly it has something to do with my mom being an awful drunk through her forties but starting to turn into a sweet old lady in her fifties.
50 isn’t an arbitrary milestone to me. I intend to live to 100. So it’s the midpoint.