Happy birthday to me!
I turned 50 last week, and – as is befitting a milestone birthday – I promptly had a minor (ish) personal crisis. Why? 50 is the new 30, right? I have embraced “age is just a number” for so long that it’s become a mantra of sorts. Yet when I hit that big 5-0 I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.
After a week of emotional turmoil and a visit to my PCP for stress, I’ve started tentatively moving toward a game plan … I know, I can hear your eyes rolling at the fact that my reality isn’t any different than it was before I turned 50. And you’re right – it isn’t. But I became acutely aware of some things that have changed while I wasn’t looking, things that I was decidedly in denial about.
The truth is, I have no idea who I am now that my kids are growing up.
I can tell you who I thought I was. I thought I was Mom To Four Children, who somehow in my head were still small. That’s not to say that I don’t see and love them as they are, grown (or almost grown) and amazing, but part of me was still holding onto the little version of them frozen in time. Maybe being forced unwillingly into the workforce by a divorce ten years ago caused me to fix them in my heart at that exact age in perpetuity, or maybe it’s just what we do as parents … our children are always our babies, in a way.
Then that pesky little birthday showed up, quietly asking “If I don’t have littles who need me every waking moment, what am I doing with my life?” There’s no word for the feelings that rise up and threaten to overwhelm you when you realize – deep in your soul – that the things that once gave your days purpose and defined your entire identity were always and inevitably, temporary. And yes, we’ve all heard “the days are long but the years are short,” but when you’re standing at the end of the years looking back on it all, it takes a minute to process.
I was Mom. And that was enough. It still is enough.
But.
It turns out that can’t be all that I am, and it never could be. I think it was easy to delude myself that Mom-ing (yes, I make up words) would be what I would do forever and ever, amen. But that was an adventure that always came with an expiration date – not on being a mother, because that’s a Forever Role. But being Mommy … yes, those days are always numbered. But in the midst of it all, it sure does feel like it will never end.
I went back to college last year to finally finish the degree I started 30 years ago. The problem is, I can’t seem to pick a major – mostly because I haven’t been ready (or willing) to let go of my current, slowly expiring title: Mommy. Maybe this birthday shakeup was exactly what I needed. Time isn’t going to rewind for me, no matter how hard I wish it would. It’s probably time I start figuring out who I am underneath the ‘Mommy’ badge.
When I began this journey of raising children, I hadn’t quite figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up – unless you count my plan to be a rock star, which surprisingly didn’t work out. I was a young mom to my firstborn, who in many ways helped me learn how to be a mother. When you become a parent – if you do it right, anyhow – those early plans take a backseat to the bedtime stories and the diapers and the games and the tears and the giggles that could fill an entire world. And they do fill an entire world – yours, to be exact.
Then one day they’re calling you “Bruh” and they’re gone more than they’re home, and you realize the rest of your life still needs to be filled as they go off to lead theirs. And that is the perfect storm that arrived on my 50th birthday.
Do I wish I could step back in time, spend the afternoon running around the house with them, dancing to music? Yes—more than I can say. But I can’t. So I will hold those memories close, cherish the young adults who I’m very proud of, and maybe see what the rest of my life holds.
Do you think 50 is too old for rock stardom?
