I spent the morning of my 51st birthday wearing camouflage and hunkered down on the edge of a cornfield.
Holding my heavy camera still, eyes trained on the distant stalks, I tried very hard not to laugh at the shrill screech of my husband’s turkey call.
From the top of my messy hair, stuffed carelessly into a random baseball hat, to the tips of my brother’s old tennis shoes, it was a far cry from a year ago. For that milestone birthday, I tooled around Chicago in a new black dress and fancy hairdo, toasting merrily with family while frantically bemoaning the swift passage of time.
I’m looking at life from a different lens for my second half century.
It’s a little more relaxing on this side of the hill.
For my next half-century I intend to be less frenzied, and more engaged.
I’ll be kinder when I look in the mirror, and less leery of shopping and scales.
I hope to lose less sleep to worry, and more to making plans.
I’ll still fill my plate with colorful food, start my day with a good cleansing sweat, and stand straight and tall, when I remember.
But, I’ll also eat apple bread pudding and chocolate cake, stretch out on the couch with a good book, and find time for a front porch sit.
With this next 50 years I will:
- Make time for my old friends and be open to new ones
- Seek advice from my children and listen to their wise counsel
- Laugh
- Avoid complaining and the people who do
- Dance with my husband, even though neither one of us can remember the steps to a Foxtrot
- Dive into the water without dipping my toe
- Do crossword puzzles in pen
- Moisturize
- Support local musicians
- Hand write thank you notes and remember to mail them
- Wear the yellow sundress my sweet daughter sent me
- Watch the whole sunrise
For my 51st birthday, I bought a new camera lens. And, I intend to spend the next 49 years looking carefully through it.
