So today, my sister turned 50.
She’s my big sister, and thus this is a milestone I have yet to reach — but she’s not that much bigger than me (regardless of all efforts to convince me otherwise), so I’ll be getting there pretty soon. Four years and two months. I’ll blink, and they’ll be gone.
But the thing is that this fact is crazy. Insane. Almost literally incredible. Forty didn’t throw me much — in her or in me — but 50?
Holy crap. That is a real number.
Ringo Starr famously celebrated a rather realer number recently, and he had an interesting thing to say about it in the New York Times:
Q. How are you feeling about the number 70?
A. As far as I’m concerned, in my head, I’m 24. That’s just how it is. The number, yeah, it’s high. But I just felt I’ve got to celebrate it. I’m on my feet and I’m doing what I love to do, and I’m in a profession, as a musician, where we can go on for as long as we can go on. I’m not hiding from it, you know.
Q. When you were 24 what did you think you’d be doing at age 70?
A. I don’t know, but when I was 22, actually, I remember this so well, and I was playing, and there was another band, and these people in that other band were 40, and I was saying, “My God, you’re still doing it?” [laughs] Which doesn’t look funny in black and white, but it was incredible, and now I’m waaaaay past 40. My new hero is B. B. King.
…
Q. What seems like an advanced age to you now?
A. I think 90. But we’ll see. It’s a birthday at a time.
Huh. What age am I in my head? I thought.
Because I’m certainly not 45. I’m not sure what “45 in my head” would feel like, but this is not it. I guess 45 sounds settled, arrived, evolved. I am not settled, nor arrived, nor evolved — and not in the sense that I’m a kid at heart, or that I refuse to grow up, or even that my career never really took off and now lies in something like ruins.
No, I just don’t feel essentially different than I have for a very long time. I have been me, this whole time. Things move, I tinker, I am forever messing about — but I’m working on improving the existing program, not replacing the hardware.
No life-altering discoveries, no enormous upheavals, no 12-step programs or major therapy. There was some minor therapy about 15 years ago, but that seemed to simply make me more me. I became a mother, yes, that was huge. But contrary to all the fears bandied about out there, one doesn’t become someone new when one becomes a parent. One expands — one doesn’t change.
So when was it that I became this me person? What is the age at which I first felt fully myself?
And I realized: It was when I met my husband. I was 28, I was swimming along quite happily in my life, working a job I liked and was proud of, going out dancing late at night with friends, sleeping with men I only barely knew because I wanted to, and then I met this guy.
And from about two weeks after I met him, I have never been anybody but whoever I am with him. Whatever tweeks and fixes and developments and quiet paddling I’ve accomplished, it’ll all been within the framework of the relationship that has always allowed me to be my best self. My truest self.
In my head, I am 28. And I’ve just written in my journal that I think that Eran and I are going to get married.
Emily L. Hauser - In My Head 
Lise
/ July 19, 2010In my head I’m 32. Isn’t that interesting? You’re 28, and I’m 32. Which we were back then. I had just started midwifery school, and the self-imposed chaos was not yet on the horizon. And now, through all of that, and here we are, on a different shore, exploring the terrain.
Thank you to you and Eran, the girl and the boy, to our mom, and to my wonderful husband for such a fun birthday dinner tonight!
I can never express enough how happy I am that you married that guy. Good job, the both of you!
ashok
/ July 20, 2010That’s a really awesome reflection on what age means – there are times in our life where we are more truly who we are.
A friend recently was moping about turning 30, and I wanted to say “you’re not happy?” I can’t imagine being 21 or even 25 again – I see so many more issues now, I don’t dodge responsibility, I know what I want out of life. And yeah, I will say dealing with younger people does make me more confident being older. I love them to pieces, but wow: I wouldn’t want to reason like I didn’t know, or couldn’t know.
dave in texas
/ July 20, 2010You kids and your worrying about getting old. 😉
Much like homophobia, or racism, or any number of other things that we as a society obsess over, age is largely a social construct. Of course it’s important to mark the passage of time and the wisdom (hopefully) that accrues, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth over reaching certain numbers is a bit of puzzle, although I’m certainly not totally immune to said wailing and gnashing.
I kind of expected 30 to really depress me, being of the generation that come of age under Abby Hoffman’s dictum never to trust anyone over 30, but it just kind of passed without too much emotion. 40 was the one that set me back on my heels. I’m not really sure why, but then again, logic doesn’t have a lot to do with this sort of thing, does it? I expected 50 (a half century!) to be angst-ridden, but it was more just, meh at this point, so what.
At 55, the only thing I really miss is being the semi-stud athlete I once was, and in my head, always will be. So I guess in my head, I’m at the peak of athletic ability, 30 or so, although I certainly don’t miss the embarrassingly large number of stupid decisions I was making during those years.
It’s all about the journey.
rebecca
/ July 20, 2010i wonder if people used to be older at certain ages than we are today. we constantly hear about 30 being the new 20 and 80 being the new 70…. perhaps it used to be that 45 was the new 70 and by 35 one was already incorporating “mid-life crisis” into their daily routine.
sue swartz
/ July 20, 2010Two things: yay! about Eran (we should all be so lucky as to find partners who bring out our best); and a woman’s 50s are fabulous. Life-flipping, hormonally challenging, and existentially unnerving… but truly fabulous nonetheless. Stay tuned.