Joe Rutland just turned 50. And he is still as ready for life as he ever was – maybe even a little bit more.
______
On Aug. 23, 2014, I turned 50 years old. Just even reaching that age is a miracle in my book.
The day wasn’t celebrated with a big birthday cake, a wild Vegas party with … well … Vegas activities, or with a weekend along the California coast. No, I worked that day. I treated myself to lunch here at home in Chandler, Ariz., received prior to “the day” and on it some wonderful well-wishes from friends near and far, and I worked.
No big deal.
Um … wait a second. Turning 50 is no big deal?
I think not!
It’s a hell of a great deal.
♦◊♦
Look, getting to 50 years old means that I waded through 49 years of pain, anger, sweat, tears, death, addiction, sadness, frustration, codependency, broken relationships, healed relationships, overt and covert abuse, family-of-origin insanity, dealing with a craniofacial anomaly on a daily basis, playing different roles for different people, not knowing who I really am as a man and human being, learning about who I really am as a man and human being … and living proof that I get to have a midlife awakening.
Before getting too far ahead of myself, I’ve had a few days now to see how being 50 feels. So far, it’s good. I feel like I am wearing 50 pretty well. Yet much like the weather in the Mother Land (that would be my home state of Texas, so get used to the term), just wait a few minutes and the situation can change.
From comfortable to loneliness, from desiring a girlfriend to “No, I’m not ready yet,” from dreaming, visualizing and desiring to live the life of my dreams to staying complacent and simply following the rules of being 50 … that’s the way the weather can change in my world.
One thing I do know is that my life is not over because I turned 50 years old. By now, from the “this-is-what-I-make-up-in-my-head” standards I’ve noticed among other men, I should have been married and divorced (at least once), had a couple of kids, built up a pretty fair amount of money in the bank, and taken multiple trips to different places in the United States and around the world.
Yet my life is just beginning. It’s not over. I do have dreams and aspirations for this body of mine.
|
My reality is that I’ve never been married, never had kids, don’t have much in the bank as I write this piece, have no woman in my life, and it’s been a long time since I have taken a lengthy vacation. I’m not complaining, OK. That is simply how my path to 50 has manifested in my life.
Yet my life is just beginning. It’s not over. I do have dreams and aspirations for this body of mine. I choose to believe that the best part of being alive is not only in this moment as I’m writing this column, but it’s in the next moment … and the next one … and the next.
The more present that I can be emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually as a man, then there is more joy, love, abundance, wholeness, healing and awareness that rise like the morning sun.
♦◊♦
Getting to 50 was not on my goals list at 40. Nor was it at 30. In fact, I didn’t really start to feel my feelings and emotions until turning 38 or 39 years old. You think I’m kidding, right? Like I went off to college, had a bunch of frat parties, kegged it up (well I did do that in my own way … that’s for another column), slept around with a lot of women, got a degree, and landed in a high-paying career? Not in my world, friends.
For me, turning 50 means more than a number or age. It means that I’ve had a lot of life experiences, lived through some shit, learned some things … and I’m still learning. Just in the past couple of days, I went through another emotional life lesson. I found it astonishingly beautiful and painful.
A situation took place where I was able to tell another person, in a conversational way, that I felt like I’d treated him wrongly and apologize. This person accepted my apology, and all the unhealthy energy within me toward this person vanished. Yet the real lesson came later when I was led to realize, at a deeper level, that I was looking for validation. It goes back to my 10-year-old boy still trying to get Mom to stop binge drinking over and over again. Feeling that burden and seeing how it emotionally continues to play out in my life, even after all the soul work I’ve done, was, as I said, beautiful and painful. The big, big lesson? There is more soul work to do, and I don’t mind doing it.
♦◊♦
So is being 50 “it?” I mean, does life simply head downfield like a breakaway running back? I don’t think so. I feel like there are many life lessons to learn in this year, in this day, in this hour, this minute. OK, call me some living-in-my-head fool that doesn’t know much. Yet there is so much more to life than I’ve really ever tasted, felt or smelled. I want to celebrate this 50th year on Planet Earth in a real, tangible way.
I can do that by being more observant of what is happening within me and around me, including societal and cultural issues. As I write this, comedian Joan Rivers died at age 81. Rivers’ death comes just a few weeks after comedian Robin Williams died at age 63.
My hope and want for “I’m 50, Now What?” is that it can bring a little light into your own life as a man.
|
The joy, humor and laughter these two people brought to millions around the world are, to me, like flickering lights of love that are never extinguished. The lights can be turned down and dimmed very, very low. But they never go out.
My hope and want for “I’m 50, Now What?” is that it can bring a little light into your own life as a man. If you are a woman reading this, then I’m glad you are, too, and hope you find something of value and worth in my words.
I really want you to like me. I really, really do. It’s all about my people-pleasing skills being perfected even more through words and attention.
Bullshit.
I choose to be as real as I can be, and I hope you do, too.
______
Photo credit: stephen jones/flickr
Wait til you’re 54.. thats when everything goes to hell…..