I am turning fifty years old this Sunday on June 2nd and I am ready. So ready. Middle age is a luxury that too few are granted. I am not squandering, looking away, or wishing to be through it. I am savoring every sexy, stretched out, sentimental moment.
Lots of other people that I love are turning 50 this year (happy birthday to us ALL). There are several social movements and anniversaries that are experiencing some middle age revistings, not all in great ways: Roe V Wade (1973), the Equal Rights Amendment (1972), and The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974). The 1974 TV shows Rhoda, Good Times, and All In The Family were bringing topics like abortion and racism into living rooms each week for the first time. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet by Bachman-Turner Overdrive was a 1974 hit song that foreshadowed what the Gen X kids born during this era would experience in our first few decades on planet Earth. Change was coming (was it????) and we were a part of it. Not sure that change went the way it was meant to???? Good news, we are still working at it all. Bad news, there is a long way to go.
I’ve been thinking about this upcoming birthday for many months. How do I want to observe this specific and socially anticipated landmark? How do I want to feel on this day? How do I ensure that what I want to happens, happens on/for my birthday?
Well, turns out, what I want is not so hard to articulate. I want to feel seen, valued, cherished, and loved. I want to go out on a boat and swim in a lake with people that I love. I want to eat tomatoes and pie. I want to sing karaoke with my kids. I want to listen to music that I love with people that I love. I do not want to make a single decision about what to eat on my birthday and I do not want to wash a dish. So, that’s what is on tap!
As a middle aged person I (finally) know how to ask for what I want. I know how much it matters to share my hopes and fears so that those who love me can show up for me in the ways that I want them to. I have learned the value of kindly stated, clear, precise boundaries. I’ve metabolized that communicating these, and my expectations, are how we safely love each other. So, I let my people know what I want, how I want it, and what I do not want for this birthday. Now I can settle in and enjoy the ride.
The first fifty years in this increasingly saggy and freckled skin sack have been mostly a treasure, truly. When I am able to take the long view I can see that. Days at a time, well, that’s been a different kind of experience as this life has often felt lonely, scary, and lacking. That’s the small, detailed, critical view. I am doing Big Work to pull back in my focus, giving myself permission to let go of the small stuff. To characterize the quality of my life thus far I am choosing words like fantastical, colorful, ecstatic, full of freedom, overflowing with good fortune, and textured by bold adventure. My life, in both the small and the large moments, feels guided by a force that is not my own and also not God (I don’t go in for that) so I am not sure what I call it: luck? Sure, let’s go with luck.
A few nuggets from early middle age that I wished the elders had told me about so that I had them to look forward to:
You might find that you will give no fucks about almost anything and there is a lot of liberation in that if you let it
Middle aged friendships are the best yet
The joy of parenting teens while entering middle age is a blast; everyone wants to sleep more, eat more, and have more fun
The orgasms, friends, are transformative, mighty, and worth the wait
Orienting oneself around one’s profession matters less and less (by this time you’ve spent possibly 30 years hustling) and who you are as a person, a neighbor, a friend, a partner, a citizen invites us to pulls focus to those spaces
I’ve decided that, as a gift to myself, I want to write down 50 memories that have brought me joy over the last five decades. They are not in any kind of order. They are just snapshots of some golden moments that contribute to making me who I am. This gift is for me so I won’t take it personally if you don’t read any further. I want to center this birthday on the five decades worth of wild grace that has flowed my way with ease and good fortune. I want to remember the good stuff and leave the rest behind.
Onwards!
Singing into my red Hello Kitty hairbrush as a microphone while Debbie Harry and Olivia Newton-John told me about being physical and aliens that come right down and land on the ground, knowing that I sounded great and that I was destined to be a pop icon, circa 1981 and I was 7.
Listening to my sister singing, anytime, anywhere.
Dancing the two step with my Dad at a honky tonk bar in Little Rock, Arkansas, on my twelfth birthday.
Watching my mom laugh very deeply, playing charades, with her two besties, Jonelle + Chris, and trying to figure out what was so funny.
The day that Adam Rosenbloom walked into a Social and Behavioral Health class at Boston University in a pair of perfectly fitted blue corduroy pants and I thought to myself, that guy. Please.
Watching Naz play the drums, anytime, anywhere.
Meeting my friend Eliza for the first time on a front porch in Austin, Texas, and knowing, without a doubt, that I’d never really be feel alone again as long as she and I know each other.
Singing karaoke with my family in a living room in Newport, Rhode Island, in the early morning on a day in June as people walk by on the sidewalk outside and smile watching up sing together, off key, and laugh.
Being on a boat with my brother driving on a lake in Arkansas.
Meeting my children for the first time, in operating theaters in Nazareth, Israel, and Austin, Texas, over the blue cloak on the cesarean section table and feeling by heart break open.
Watching an impossibly orange and purple sunrise over the Himalaya mountains from my bedroom patio where I was living/working at a hospital in India, while listening to Fire On the Mountain by the Grateful Dead in the headphones on my walkman, smoking a bidi cigarette and drinking fresh chai out of blue ceramic mug.
Submerging myself in a creek in Sedona, Arizona, during a monsoon rain with all of my clothes on, while my dog Jack sat on a rock next to me.
Climbing a magnolia tree in our front yard in Harrison, Arkansas, with a Happy Meal box from McDonald’s, adding it to the collection of other Happy Meal boxes that I stashed there, feeling satisfied in my secret collection of sacred objects.
The day that we found out that Adam “matched”in Austin for his residency and we would get to stay in Austin and raise our kids here with my parents close at hand.
Playing tennis (we had no idea how to play tennis) on a summer day in a local public park court in West Hartford, Connecticut, with my brother and sister as we chased balls and each other, laughing wildly.
A slumber party in Fayetteville, Arkansas at my mom’s house where me and my 12 year old friends stayed up all night listening to a record, Madonna’s club release of Into The Groove, and doing headstands.
Going Christmas shopping with my sister at West Farms Mall in Connecticut where we laughed so hard about a lobster bib sweater that we fell over onto the ground and could not stop.
Looking out the window in the back seat of an old Land Cruiser driving across Tibet with Adam Rosenbloom, holding hands, taking in the landscape that looked like the surface of the moon.
Watching my mom give an acceptance speech for an award that she was given in a packed ballroom in San Francisco to a standing ovation.
Standing up on a surf board for the first time at age 46 in Mexico after many days of trying and failing and trying and failing and trying and failing.
Watching my 14 year old brother learn to hacky sack at Lollapalooza in Rhode Island in 1992.
Being on a boat in Arkansas on a lake, it is dark, Sam is driving. I am in the water, floating on my back taking in the stars and moon. My kids and my niece are laughing with Sam and Katy Perry is telling me that I am a firework.
Lying on my friend Stefanie Shelton’s bed, eating powdered doughnuts out of a box, listening to Sinead O’Connor, and watching her ceiling fan spin.
The pride that I felt the first time that I beat my Dad swimming out to the swimming area rope at Greer’s Ferry Lake in Van Buren County, Arkansas. He never let me win.
Driving on quiet, rural county roads in Connecticut, alone, in the fall with a gallon of water and a box of cookies, listening to Van Morrison, with no destination in mind, taking in the leaves and feeling so content and lucky.
Any Christmas morning at my brother, Zack, and SIL, Olivia’s, house in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Driving to school in the morning in the snow in my 1972 green VW Karmann Ghia with Jordyn as we shiver (there was no heat), singing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of our lungs.
Watching the sunrise over Mt Tamalpais in San Fransisco with Jojo, Brad, Sarah, and Mike, after staying up all night dancing and laughing and loving each other madly.
Every moment of falling in love with Adam.
My mom telling my kids “dirty” jokes and the way that they laugh together.
Climbing the hill behind my Grandparent’s house in Clinton, Arkansas after a heavy spring rain with my sister and passing through a small waterfall into the cave behind it and feeling far away and on an adventure.
Falling asleep in a yurt in Marfa, Texas, snuggled up with Bodhi, listening to the Black Pumas play a live set.
The day that two years of work culminated when a bus full of Palestinian midwives pulled into a driveway in the Galilee in Israel, meeting for the first time, a group of Israeli midwives. Everyone’s hearts broke open and we all cried.
Dancing to Stevie Wonder with my gorgeous adult siblings, their loving and exceptional spouses, and sexy AF Adam at Nancy + Zach’s wedding in Vermont.
Sam singing “Brandy” when our family does karaoke together. Get’s me every time.
Making smoothies at Fresh Blend in Berkeley, CA circa 1996 with Jojo and Mike while singing along to whatever was playing on the radio.
Driving alone on any back highway in Montana, Arizona, Oregon, California, or Idaho with a pack of blue American Spirits, Ani Difranco blasting on the tape player, the windows down, Jack my dog with me in the passenger seat of a busted up Subaru station wagon, with nowhere to be.
Dancing with Adam to Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough on dewy, wet grass in a field in Vermont under a canopy of fireworks and a full moon on our wedding night, surrounded by people who love us.
Being on my Dad’s back while he scaled a bluff on the Buffalo River and him whispering to me “you are safe, we are fine, this is going to be so fun” and then jumping off a bluff into the water below while holding his hand.
Slipping naked into a natural hot springs, after a one mile hike off a back woods road, in rural Idaho on a full moon night with a thermos of hot tea and a boom box playing Willie Nelson.
Reading alone in a hammock.
Hosting spontaneous dinner parties at our house in Be’er Sheba, Israel, during medical school that ran long into the night on/in our back porch garden when we were all dreaming of who we’d yet to become.
The first time I went back to a movie theater after COVID had started and the opening credits rolled. I cried.
Watching Bodhi act in a play, especially watching the way that the audience reacts to him and then how in turn reacts to the audience.
Sitting on my Dad’s front porch talking with him about Dune.
The day I opened an email telling me that the United Nations was giving me and my team a prize for the innovative work we’d done in Syria and Sierra Leone.
The feeling of doing a perfect backstroke start off the blocks.
The day Adam’s med school debt was forgiven.
Watching my kids laugh together about something that I do not understand but that they, together, understand so innately that they don’t even need to use words to explain to the other what they are laughing about.
Eating dinner with Adam and our kids at our house and catching a moment of perfect connection when we are all laughing, loving, and safe in each other’s presence and knowing how fucking lucky I am that any of this has led me here.