How to face 50

From a guy about to put 49 in the rearview mirror.

Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash

I can’t believe I’m about to turn 50. I feel 32. I look … 39? I said, my voice rising. Fifty is a milestone age, and like all milestone ages, each hits differently. Thirty is like – you survived your 20s! Crazy! Because you shouldn’t have! Forty is like – no worries, you’re getting older, but you’re still young. Fifty is like – yeah, so, thing is, try not to die, OK?

Fifty is wild. Halftime is over. It’s the third quarter. You’re up against the grim reaper, and he is undefeated all time, except for that one guy, and he got half the Bible. And you’re not Him.

You know and I know: your 50th birthday is just a day, like any other. Except people you love make a big deal about it. Why? They want to celebrate you. Why? If you’ve made it to 50, there are perhaps things worth celebrating about you, and those things don’t just belong to you. Family, friendships, work, character – they’re things worth honoring in the world, and this occasion will do.

ALTERNATELY: If you’ve reached 50, and you’re like, ehh, this whole thing has been underwhelming for me — there is still time. You still have time. There is no downside to this approach. If you believe you still have time and act on it, and you make something of it, there you go. You did it. If you believe you still have time and act on it, but it doesn’t work out for you, what’d you really lose? YOU STILL HAVE TIME.

Bottom line: whether you like it or not, and whether you want to or not, for better and for worse, you must face 50.

But how do you do that?

I am here to tell you: I don’t know.

I am also here to tell you: maybe I can take a guess and maybe it will help when it’s your turn. This is what Substack is for — it’s the world’s most popular People Helping Machine.

The way I see it, there are two ways you have to face 50 – internally and externally.

Externally, maybe you won’t like it, but let those who love you show you they love you.

This means cake and candles. Maybe dinner with your parents, wife and kids. Maybe a party with oversized numeric mylar balloons. Or maybe a sunset booze cruise up and down the Cuyahoga River with pals you’ve known for over 30 or 40 years. It needs to be something — anything — because turning 50 is about you but it’s mostly about the people in your life wanting a chance to say they love you, possibly while on a watercraft floating upon the world’s most famously flammable river. You do the celebration for them, not for you.

A lovely day in Cleveland for a sunset cruise on a river that is not on fire.

Internally? Oh, boy. That’s the hard part.

You know how long the average person lives in this country, and you can now subtract it by a nice even number, and it’s probably how much time you’ve got left. What do you do with THAT? The clock is ticking, man. But the answer is also right there in front of you, and it’s not a midlife crisis purchase, and it’s not suddenly becoming a travel guy, or a food guy, or a whatever guy and leaning into escape. It’s digging in hard on all the reasons anyone in this world cares about your 50th. It’s your family, your friends, your work, and yourself. It’s embracing and realizing how much those things matter – really, really matter. Nothing lasts forever. Taking none of it for granted is the gift you can give yourself on your 50th.

And that, I think, is how you face The Big Half-Century Birthday – proud, blessed, loved, maybe slightly buzzed while singing yacht rock songs on a boat, fortunate, confident, a little scared but mostly with a sense of, “Yeah, I get it, tick-tick-tick, LET’S GO!”

READ MORE

• Happy anniversary to the time I killed my old self