The Bitter and the Sweet of 50 - Kathy Caprino

The Bitter and the Sweet of 50 Today, I’m 50. While I certainly saw it coming â€" for months and years, of course â€" there’s nothing quite like waking up to the fact.   (Those of you who are 50 know what I mean â€" those who aren’t, you’ll see!).   50 may be the new 30, but there is no denying that there are 50 years of experience â€" joys, pain, disappointments, triumphs and hard-earned living behind these eyeballs, ya know? For my private celebration, I went to the beach (my favorite place on earth) and plunked down on the freshly-combed sand to spend a little “me-time.”   I pulled out my shiny new iPhone (thanks, honey!) to listen to some tunes, and this is what I heard delicately wafting through my ear buds: “I tasted, tasted love so sweet… I kept falling over I kept looking backward I went broke believing That the simple should be hard All we are we are All we are we are And every day’s the start of something beautiful And in the end words won’t matter ‘cause in the end nothing stays the same And in the end dreams just scatter and fall like rain…” (from All We Are, Matt Nathanson) I really like that.   Sums it up well, don’t you think?   I’ve found that the dreams of our lives do scatter â€" blowing in the wind like the gossamer seeds of fading dandelions.   But that doesn’t mean we should stop having our dreams.   Never.   (Why? Because our dreams catapult us forward to where the stretching is â€" so we can truly become all we long to be.)   For me, 50 is bittersweet.   It’s brought with it:   A deep, soul-felt gratitude for the blessings that are my family and friends An acceptance that where I am is exactly right, even though it’s certainly not where I thought I’d be   A multitude of dreams born and dashed, then born again. A feeling of being comforted, loved and seen, even when I’m all alone   A continual opportunity to forgive and accept myself in the face of my gigantic blunders and missteps   Knowing that treasuring the very small things in life makes the very big difference between joy and suffering   Recognizing that life is perfect imperfection â€" a cleverly-designed journey that inspires, pushes, stretches, dash hopes, build dreams, and dangles the Carrot â€" only to offer a shiny new one to tempt, the minute the previous one is snatched And â€" finally, 50 has unlocked in me a readiness to be who I really am. So, Happy Birthday to me â€" and to you.   Bring on the bitterness and the sweet!   I’m already noticing that 50 brings with it new visions and startling revelations.   I’m ready.   And may there be many, many happy returns for all of us.