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I got a bit of a spiritual spanking this past year on my birthday - six months ago now, September 2021. I woke up at 6:00 am, a bundle of nerves in anticipation of the first day of school. A new year, new classes to teach, opportunity lurking, and the promise of an end to the pandemic around the corner. I felt hopeful. There’s an energy in the cool autumn air that often inspires change; a new pair of jeans, the launch of a long awaited business, a fresh haircut that may or may not last the year. And all around us nature explodes in a miracle of technicolour, too spectacular sometimes to seem real. All in all, it’s a pleasant time of year. Buried deep in those September distractions is my birthday. I turned 50 this past year. I had decided ahead of time that I would not acknowledge it. It didn’t feel like me. Fifty felt like a sweater that wouldn’t fit, a flight I wouldn’t dare board or a menu item I would NEVER order. I was certain it would turn my stomach and burn my delicate esophagus going down. I would find a way to send 50 back to the kitchen. Not to be dramatic, but I had made up my mind - 50 was not happening.

But it did.

Luckily, I had enough excitement to keep me distracted from this ‘milestone’. It could pass by before anyone was the wiser. My husband had just returned from a long trip to Japan, my middle son was turning 18, two of my three boys were starting University, and I had new courses to sink my teaching teeth into. At night, I was going to work TIFF - a fabulously intense international film festival. Not to mention, I had been working out a lot lately and I felt great. I had the biceps of a 46 year old, the calves of a 47 year old and the thighs of a 49 year old. I was firmly, or somewhat firmly, committed to staying in my forties. I felt in control.

That fateful day in September - the dreaded birthday, refused to go as planned. It started with a COVID case. I had waited all summer to see my husband. We were able to spend only a few days together before he received the news that he had tested positive for COVID and would need to go into isolation. He was showing symptoms and beginning to get sick. Like so many households around the globe, we now had someone to care for in seclusion. Masks, gloves, food trays being left outside the door and facetime check-ins with each other as though he were still half way around the world. We had Netflix watch parties with ‘dad’ in the basement. He was our very own Harry Potter, instead of under the stairs, he was just downstairs.

This blew up my plan for the next two weeks. I was supposed to pass off the baton to my husband. He would take over the household and I could throw myself into work - school all day, and the festival at night. In order to protect the celebrities and the infrastructure of the festival, I was told not to come in to work. The school board? They didn’t mind so much. I taught, despite having ‘made out with COVID’. Those couple of weeks that were going to be filled with work and festival fun were reduced to 24 hr a day lesson planning and meal planning with a whole lot of cleaning in between. We celebrated my son’s birthday as best we could while I continued to ignore mine. To complicate things further, I began to feel the pain of bursitis and a tear in my left glute, diagnosed months later, that left me unable to tie my shoes or sit properly. My new workouts were clearly the culprit. Steve was sick, I was sore. We were meant for each other. The birthday was poo poo so far.

Friends and family sent flowers, thoughtful gifts, and even cards and letters full of memories and well wishes. If I were a kind or honourable person, I might have been more appreciative. With two hands, I pushed the loot to the other side of the kitchen table. At the edge of it all was a pair of socks I had lovingly received that said “Fuck off! I’m reading”. I identified a little too much with the first part of that sentiment. I said my thank you’s and made sure to let people know I was busy managing September and maybe there would be a celebration at a later date. With my schedule now cleared in the evening and nothing left to do but cook, clean and think, I had more head space to ponder my age. This was not the plan. I wanted to be wildly busy doing interesting things. I could hear the chatter in my head:

“Wow! Look at her go. And she’s 50!”

“She’s so thin! And she’s 50!”

“When does she sleep? And she’s 50!”

“What? A full time day job AND working a film festival? Amazing. And she’s 50!”

“She has the energy of a teenager, but did you hear? She’s actually 50!”

I would amaze, delight and defy my age. Instead… I was sweaty from teaching in an unairconditioned building all day in PPE, sweaty from cooking and sanitizing all evening, sweaty from late night lesson plan revisions, sweaty from the stress of trying to figure out how to stop sweating. And sweaty from repeatedly opening mail or packages that screamed “Happy 50th” in toxic gold and glittery ink. With hair and random bits of paper towel stuck to my dampened forehead, I was beginning to feel defeated.

There were so many reasons why I had decided 50 shouldn’t happen. It seems by 50 you are encouraged to join a different gym. One for people ‘your age’. Because there are paramedics on site? Bursitis watch dogs? You are required to take a ‘poop’ test now that colon cancer is a very real threat at this age. Without any regard for well established routines in the privy, they request a self-administered test. Despite my years of training in good manners, I found myself in the bathroom acting like a preschooler - poop, scoop, smear and then pop it all in the mail. Well I never! The alarm bells also go off for breast cancer as well - a mammogram is a must once you hit 50. As it should be. I’m too nervous not to do that one. Next - a shingles vaccine is recommended. I don’t need to be low on collagen, dealing with turkey neck and then break out in oozing shingles wounds, thank you very much. I’d look like a baseball mitt left out in the rain shot up by a BB gun. I surrendered to getting the shot before the stress of aging could bring on the shingles. Fifty is often when one might begin to feel mild arthritis, and rightfully so if you’ve done anything fun in your life that puts a little stress on the ole joints. It’s like you’re being punished for having lived a little.

Trying to pass gas in secret is no longer an option - it’s all thunder now. Bending over requires a bit of scheduling. There isn’t enough conditioner in all the beauty supply aisles in the country to soothe the menopausal hair. My knuckles don’t even look like my knuckles anymore. They look like ostrich footprints in wet sand. And my glasses? I am dependent on a much more complicated prescription now. Even my earlobes have begun to sag; barely enough elasticity left in them to hold up the cheapest of earrings. I looked it up. Not a single article in any scientific journal about this problem. Can you believe it? My ears, dressed up with meagre studs look like someone has spit a tooth into a ball of dough.

I see no reason for cake or balloons.

The friends who made 50 fun. (me in the glasses - of course glasses!)

However, within a few days, by which time I was truly entrenched in my misery, I received an email from an unknown address. It was the daughter of a former colleague, dare I say friend, informing me that her mom had passed away. She was five foot nothing and laughed bigger than a stadium full of potheads. She ran the kitchen, with gusto I might add, for special needs teens and adults at a school where I had worked years ago. She taught students with varying abilities how to cook, clean, do laundry and take pride in the smallest of daily tasks - all the things I had been moaning about all week. I had been sullen about my increased household duties, my work schedule, and worst of all …my birthday. I had forgotten that I had won virtually every lottery there is to win in life and for some reason had become bogged down in counting meaningless pennies.

Shortly after hearing the sad news, another colleague at my current work innocently wished me a ‘happy birthday’ as I sat stewing behind my desk. I replied, big surprise, with a groan and an unnecessary cliché about aging. Composed and with a genuine kindness, she looked at me, a broad smile lighting up her three-ply surgical mask, and said “But…you GET to turn 50!”.

I get to turn 50?

I thought of my former colleague… my friend.

It’s not 39 Shades of Gray, it’s 50 Shades of Gray. Betty White, rest her soul, turned 50 nearly 50 years ago! Julia Child didn’t get her infamous cooking show until she was 51. Dracula was published when Bram Stoker was the ripe and delicious age of 50. Kamala Harris became the first bi-racial female U.S. vice president at the age of 56. That tells me that six years from now I still have the potential to blow the roof off this place. Fifty is magic. Fifty is everything. My life has been incredible so far and to think there is more to come and I’m still here, limping ever so slightly, but still here, is exciting. Sure - 50 is drying skin and a renewed investment in the turtleneck, but I am relieved of the pressure to find myself or prove myself and can now live with the satisfaction of being myself. While my vision is poorer and I don’t see much in front of me anymore, I can honestly say, everything else in life has become much clearer. What do I care if life burns a little going down the old esophagus, everything burns now anyway - dairy, soy, garlic, a good cocktail. I’ll gladly take the heat of another year ‘round the sun. So, happy 50th to all the lucky ones.

For Marilyn.

By Carol Sloan

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And She's 50?!