terrshee's Diaryland Diary

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My 50th Birthday

Today is my 50th birthday, and I feel really loved and honored.

I held a small dinner party at a local restaurant (Bistro D'Oc in Washington, DC, yum). I couldn't ask everyone who is important to me, and not everyone I asked could make it. But it managed to be a nice blend of the people who have meant a lot to me over the course of my adult life. There was food, there was drink, there was laughter, there were a few tender moments and a few funny ones. We sang some old favorites and the management didn't ask us to stop or leave. I got some lovely gifts, but nothing was more pleasing that knowing that so many people whom I love and respect were willing to come out on a weeknight and have a little party with me. I could have wished some of my blood relatives were there, but we'll have a little family celebration later this week up in Pennsylvania.

Anyway, the evening was blissfully absent of bad jokes about getting old or coy compliments about being 29 again. I think we're all getting more accepting of our ages, finding the beauty in experience and being who we are. The middle years are rich ones in so many ways. Whatever regrets I have about joints that don't work so well anymore, or the passing of whatever beauty I once had, or the way in which I feel out of sync with the current culture, are more than compensated for by a contentment with my life and where I am.

I think many of us are entering that period in life where, with careers well developed, children grown (or having opted out entirely on the children), we are once again finding the time for our personal interests and remembering, not exactly the passions they excited, but the satisfactions of pursuit. There is an element of mastery in dealing with life now, and knowing that the directions I follow are much more in line with my desires. There is less confusion and more purposefulness. And I'm glad of it. You couldn't get me to repeat my teens or twenties for any reward. The thirties were better, and the forties better still. I think the next decade hold a lot of promise. And maybe a face lift. ;-)

10:59 p.m. - 2005-02-01
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past tense - always tense - future tense