Things I Know at 52

Today’s my birthday–the big 5-2! (Thank you, thank you. Really, applause isn’t necessary.)

I’m not the sort of person who freaks out over aging. When I was in my early 30’s, I met and worked with a group of women who were all in the process of turning 50, or who were already in their early 50’s, and they were such fabulous people that I knew right then: my 50’s would be awesome. I lived in joyful anticipation of my 50th birthday for a long, long time.

And I was right: my 50’s have been fantastic. My 40’s were pretty good, too, but the past few years have been even better. This is mostly because I know a few things, at 52, that make life a lot more pleasant to navigate. For instance:

I know what really matters, and I know that very few things do. In my younger years, it seems like I was angry all the time, about the smallest things. I’ve already talked about the fact that my husband and I argued a lot during the early years of our marriage. I think that’s normal, but I also think it’s behavior that many of us simply grow out of.

At this point, the only things that matter to me are good health (for myself, Mike, our kids, and the people we love) and time enough to do the things I really care about. That’s it. Nothing else makes a bit of difference. You want to put all the plastic dishes in the bottom rack of the dishwasher? Knock yourself out. I’ll say a prayer that nothing melts and trust you to replace anything that does.

I know that friendships will come and go. I’ve never been great at establishing or maintaining friendships. That’s partly due to the fact that I’m introverted, which makes it hard for me to talk to people I don’t know well, and I rarely want to socialize. That’s kind of a requirement of friendship, at least once in a while. So I used to feel personally responsible for every friendship that fizzled out–until I realized that lots of friends drift away over the years, including those I’ve connected with intentionally and often. The person Mike and I chose to be our daughter’s godfather–someone Mike had been friends with since middle school–is not someone I ever expected to lose touch with. Nevertheless, our lives started moving in different directions, and at some point we fell out of touch, and that’s no one’s fault. It’s just a thing that happens.

On the flip side of those lost relationships are the many students who stay in touch after they’ve graduated from the university. I treasure those friendships, and I might not have room to cultivate them if it weren’t for the fact that a few older friendships have lived out their season.

I know I’m fine, just as I am. Being an introvert isn’t easy. People think you’re conceited because you’re quiet. One of my relatives refers to Mike and I as “The Stuck-Ups.” (I confess that I haven’t tried very hard to demonstrate to her that this title is unwarranted. Call me crazy, but being insulted doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy.) People stop inviting you to events because you’ve turned them down so many times, which occasionally leads you to feel left out, which hurts your feelings. And then you beat yourself up about feeling hurt, since you know you wouldn’t have gone, even if you had been invited to the event in question. Still, feelings are feelings, and it does no good to deny them.

But in spite of that, I know introversion isn’t a character flaw. I don’t need to be rehabilitated. And it really doesn’t matter if someone observes that my life is boring, or calls me Grandma, or tells me that I’m stuck up–that’s their judgment and their rudeness. It has nothing to do with me.

I know we all have a limited amount of time with each other, which means you have to do your best to get it right. I’m old enough to have survived some pretty significant losses: friends and family members have died in car accidents, succumbed to cancer, committed suicide . . . And I very rarely knew when that loss was going to happen. Sometimes you get some advance warning; sometimes people are sick for days or weeks, and you know you have the chance to say whatever needs to be said. But many times, a loss happens very suddenly.

Like when one of my colleagues died in terrible accident while driving home–I wish I’d told her how much I valued her support and encouragement, but I never did, and then it was too late to say anything to her, because she was gone. Or when my mom fell down a flight of stairs and broke her hip last summer–after that, there was no time for the two of us to talk things through. She was too weak even to survive hip replacement surgery. The only option we were left with was managing her pain through her final days.

I feel incredibly lucky that my mom–with whom I had a very, very complicated relationship–was lucid enough to know that I’d flown home to be there with her and say goodbye. If only for one moment, I had the chance to get it right. And now I know that I should never pass up a chance to do that, when the chance presents itself, because it very well might be the last one I get.