Dear D.:

Your 50th is coming up this month. Rather than send you a bunch of black balloons and one of those dumb cards with a joke about adult diapers, I’m writing you a letter with some advice. I offer it with a full heart and the seasoned experience of someone who’s all of three years older than you are.

There’s no denying that 50 is a landmark birthday. A turning point. The Big One. Over the next few weeks, you’ll be paying more attention to the mirror in your bathroom. Reading your face like a road map, you’ll scrutinize your eyelids and check the skin around your cheekbones. You might notice, for the first time, a couple of age spots that can’t quite pass as freckles. You’ll wonder if your jaw line isn’t as sharp as it used to be.

As soon as I turned 50, I noticed for the first time that even my hands were starting to look like a topographical survey. Today, the pale blue veins over my knuckles are more prominent now, and the skin is etched with fine lines and small valleys. But I’m really OK with all of this — and you will be too.

Just before my 50th birthday, I remembered the lyrics from “Miles from Nowhere,” an old Cat Stevens song I loved when I was in high school:

Lord, my body, it’s been a good friend,
But I won’t need it when I reach the end.

After all these years, my body has been a very good friend. It endured years of ballet and highland dancing classes. Its knees were skinned and bruised countless times. Its tonsils were removed, it was hit by a car, it gave birth to one spectacular child. It survived a couple of blood transfusions and two complete hip replacements. And despite the injuries, it managed to travel all over the United States and parts of Europe. I marvel at how my body still works, and I’m forever grateful that it does. This is why I get so damned mad at the fashion magazine editors and advertisers who keep telling me there’s something wrong with my body — just because it isn’t 30-something anymore.

Age spots aside, what you’ll notice most after turning 50 is that you become more philosophical, less hurried. You’ll care care more about things that matter in the long run – deep relationships, good health. You’ll get wise to the advertising and marketing tricksters, and you won’t be as influenced by the trendy or the superficial. You might watch a lot less television and read whatever intrigues you, not just the books Oprah endorses, or the ones that make the best-seller lists. Hopefully, too, you’ll start wearing clothes that work for you — not necessarily what’s promoted in fashion magazines. Best of all, you’ll stop seeking so much approval from others. You’ll finally trust your own opinions.

In years to come, you might start thinking about making a real difference in your community, your world. But oddly enough, awards, accolades, and celebrity won’t interest or impress you quite as much anymore. Before taking on any new assignments or volunteer work, you’ll find yourself pausing to examine your real motivations. At least that’s what happened to me after I turned 50. I found I wanted to give from the heart, not the ego. To borrow from Thoreau, I wanted to live deliberately.

For me, living deliberately has come to mean spending more time with the people I love most, and more time on the projects I love best. Since there are never enough hours in a day, this means I have to be careful before I say “yes” to anyone or anything else. One of the gifts of middle age is that we finally realize we cannot be all things to everyone — and what a relief that is!

Once you’ve crossed the threshold between 49 and 50, you’ll have to look beyond the media for authentic, mature role models. American film directors and fashion magazine editors rarely celebrate the strength, power, and beauty of older women. And the few fashion magazines that do cater to our age group still insist on using models that look closer to 35 than 55. Regardless, resist the foolish temptation to dress like your daughter or your son’s girlfriends. We must show younger women what 50 really looks like — and prove that maturity isn’t something to be ashamed of.

It helps to have older friends as you age. Older women friends will help you navigate the thornier parts of middle age, including the empty nest and suspicious mammograms. Like senior discounts and a good eye cream, they are definitely worth seeking out. When you find them, cherish them, and listen to what they have to say.

Another friend who turned 50 a few years before I did has held up a light for me every step of the way, insisting that the fifties can be wild and juicy years if you get your priorities straight. I love her attitude. “I quit being a doormat and I don’t try to please everyone,” she once told me. “I know who I am now.”

Isn’t it a shame that we have to travel through five decades to figure this out? So the thing is, you must celebrate this birthday for all the good things it represents, for being a signpost to the richly textured life ahead of you. You are a wise woman and a beautiful friend, and I’m here with you on this incredible midlife journey.

Love and Happy Birthday to you,

Cindy

©2008; by Cindy La Ferle and used by permission of the author.

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Lately, my fifty-something friends and I have been rehashing the time-worn topic of aging gracefully versus aging desperately.

Even in the scant-few women’s magazines geared to our demographic, “mature” fashion models appear to be surgically altered or botoxed, then dressed to look 35. The message? Aging is shameful. To be avoided at all costs. She who looks youngest wins.

There’s even a new book out to lead us on this vengeful anti-aging crusade, and the title alone — How Not to Look Old — makes me wince. It also makes me angry, because I truly believe a woman can look fabulous and “old” at the same time. I keep hoping someone will write a book that celebrates our maturity, and doesn’t imply that we’re in some frantic competition with our daughters, or our sons’ girlfriends. While I want to look as attractive as I can, I have no desire to revisit my youth. I don’t miss the insecurities or the short skirts or the go-go boots. I really do want to look my age.

With that in mind, I think it would help if we had a few more grown-up role models like Helen Mirren and Lauren Hutton — elegant, self-assured women who are comfortable in their changing skin. Women who aren’t afraid to show us how beautiful maturity can be.

Jamie Lee Curtis also comes to mind. In the May/June issue of AARP The Magazine, Curtis speaks frankly about her pending 50th birthday, touching on what’s truly important to her and reflecting on things she would or wouldn’t change in her life.

“I want to be older,” Curtis says. “I actually think there’s an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older. I feel way better now than I did when I was twenty. I’m stronger, I’m smarter in every way, I’m so much less crazy than I was then.” Curtis is blazing new trails for baby boomer women, and I truly admire her for that. I hope we hear more from her and about her.

Meanwhile, I count myself lucky to have several women friends who are at least twenty years older than I am. They’re terrific role models too, though it’s not likely the media will ever discover them. I often ask for their advice, and hope to learn from their wisdom. And whenever possible, I tell them how much I admire their beauty and style.

Not long ago, in fact, a very stylish friend in her seventies reminded me that reaching maturity doesn’t have to be synonymous with looking foolish or frumpy. Echoing the late Coco Chanel, my friend told me that achieving a style of one’s own can take a lifetime. She added that a woman should always aim to be her best self, a true original, and never an imitation of someone else. I admire her savoir-faire — and aspire to be half as cool as she is.

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“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.” ~George Carlin

Halloween always stirs a cauldron of memories for nostalgic baby boomers. Who could forget trick-or-treating with packs of neighborhood pals until our pillowcases were too heavy to haul around the block? In the early 1960s, All Hallow’s Eve was spun of pure magic. Ordinary suburban streets morphed into riotous carnivals ruled by tiny goblins, sheet-clad ghosts, bearded hobos, and Superman wannabes.

Thanks to those of us who’ve shared favorite Halloween traditions with our own kids, the “season of the witch” now competes with Christmastime as the biggest party season of the year. And while Halloween superstores are marketing polyester pirate costumes and ready-made graveyard decor, I suspect that what most of us still enjoy about this evocative fall holiday is the creativity factor.

As the cooler weather nudges everyone back indoors, I’m inspired to dress the mantel with autumn leaves, miniature pumpkins, paper skeletons, and fallen branches from the back yard. And of course, I start planning my costume weeks in advance.

Stepping over age limits, Halloween extends an open invitation to play dress-up. It prompts us to raid attics and local thrift shops for the most outlandish outfits we can jumble together. If only for one magical night, it gives grown-ups permission to drop the dull disguise of conformity.

For wardrobe junkies like me, Halloween is reason enough to hoard vintage clothing and junk jewelry that should have been donated to charity ages ago. My husband now refers to our attic as “the costume museum”– and with good reason. Friends who have trouble rustling up an outfit will often call for help during dress-up emergencies. Over the years, I’ve collected so many crazy hats that we have to store them in a large steamer trunk behind the living room couch. Those hats get the most wear near Halloween, when even the most reserved engineer who visits will wear a pith helmet or a plumed pirate hat to the dinner table.

And why not?

Historically, the holiday has always been a celebration of the harvest, a madcap prelude to the more dignified ceremonials of Thanksgiving.
Halloween’s roots weave back more than 2,000 years to the Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It was originally known as the festival of Samhain, according to Caitlin Matthews, a Celtic scholar and author of The Celtic Book of Days (Destiny Books). The festival, she explains, marked the end of the farming season and the beginning of the Celtic new year. Banquet tables were prepared to honor the ancestors, who were believed to pierce the veil between the living and the dead on the eve of Samhain. It was also time to rekindle the bonfires that would sustain the clans in winter.

“In the Christian era,” Matthews writes, “the festival was reassigned to the Feast of All Saints,” yet the “ghosts” of its former customs and rituals refused to vanish.

And we can thank our Irish immigrants for the jack-o’-lantern, which reputedly wards off evil spirits. This custom evolved from the old practice of carving out large turnips and squash, then illuminating them with candles. The term jack-o’-lantern was derived from a folk tale involving a crafty Irishman named Jack, who outwitted the Devil.

On cool autumn nights, when the moon is bright and leaves scatter nervously across the sidewalk, a bittersweet chill runs up and down my spine.

Like my own Celtic ancestors, I’m moved to take stock of how much I’ve accomplished throughout the year, and how many things I’ve left undone. My to-do list is very long. There are parts of the world I haven’t seen; stories I haven’t written; debts and favors to repay. I marvel at the mellow beauty of the Halloween season, but also feel a little sad that one more year is drawing to its close. Now that I’m in midlife, there’s a subtle sense of urgency tugging at the sleeve of my costume.
________

Parts of the essay were excerpted from Cindy La Ferle’s award-winning essay collection, Writing Home, available on Amazon.com. Visit www.laferle.com for more information.

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For most of us, part of being a baby boomer is seeing our own babies grow up. It feels pretty good….but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Writer Cindy LaFerle, whose new column collection “Writing Home” has just been published, found that she had to go out on a wing and a prayer to learn to let go.

The paradox of parenting is this: The better I’ve done my job, the higher my child will fly — farther away from me. – Author unknown

A jet bound for London’s Heathrow Airport left the country in February carrying 120 rowdy college students — including my only child. Two hours before takeoff, he’d looked nervous and excited, and I couldn’t help but recall the first time I dropped my little boy off at kindergarten 14 years ago.

As his dad and I pulled away from the airport, I lost my well-rehearsed composure and dissolved into a ridiculous puddle of tears, right there in the car. Focused on the road ahead, my husband looked a little teary, too. But he quickly reminded me that our son was on his way to the educational opportunity of a lifetime — not to a war zone. Studying in London for four months is hardly as dramatic as being shipped off to Iraq with the military.

Besides, I should be used to these post-holiday parting rituals by now. Our son is a junior in college, and we’ve waved goodbye to him often enough to be reasonably cool about it.

Like most parents we know, my husband and I have always encouraged our child’s independence. Finally at peace with our new AARP membership, we’ve got more time, space, and freedom to redefine ourselves as a couple. Better yet, our house stays cleaner now. Even so, the speed at which our boy has reached adulthood makes me feel strangely uprooted on my own turf. My leading role as “Mom” is fading to a cameo.

I’ve often wondered if this letting-go business is harder on parents who have only one child. Not so, my friend Debbie reminded me recently. Deb has two daughters — one my son’s age, the other in high school.

Deb also drove her college student to the airport. While my son is at school in London, Deb’s daughter will be studying art in Italy. Deb realizes, like I do, that this is a fabulous opportunity for a young person. Regardless, she gets a little weepy each time she remembers that her firstborn is living across an ocean and isn’t just a cheap phone call away. But what it really boils down to is this: we’re all getting a sneak preview of the not-so-distant future. More than likely, our kids will be working far from home after college graduation.

Furthermore, if you’re a mom who tends to worry, it doesn’t help that we live in an age when terrorism is standard fare on the nightly news. My imagination is propelled into overdrive each time my son boards a plane, for instance, and I can recite every deadly hijacking in the history of air travel. I lie awake in bed thinking about subway bombings, mugging attempts, or even food poisoning. (As soon as President Bush announced plans to dispatch 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, I conjured images of anti-American protesters in the streets of London, tossing rocks or grenades at unsuspecting tourists while my boy tried to make his way to class.)

Of course, I know better. When the logical half of my brain takes over, I finally calm down. I remind myself that travel is the world’s best teacher. No matter how many diplomas you can hang on your wall, it’s what you discover outside your comfort zone that really molds your character. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re visiting Ohio Amish Country or Paris, France. There’s always an opportunity to witness a way of life you hadn’t considered before.

Years ago, when I was a travel magazine editor, my husband and I toured some remarkable places that we wouldn’t have visited otherwise. And we always returned home feeling changed for the better. When our son was old enough to travel with us, we always planned our family vacations with the hope that he too might learn to look at life through a new lens.

We wouldn’t dream of holding him back now. “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page,” wrote St. Augustine. I rediscovered that quote in one of my old travel journals this afternoon. I plan to recopy it in a letter I’ll send to my son — along with a coy reminder to phone home soon.

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