Into every life a little milestone must fall. Right? Two weeks from today I will turn 50. The. Big. Five. Oh.And in other news, I just sent the latest draft of my young adult manuscript to my agent in what felt like mile 26.1 of a marathon. Breathless and panting, I'm heading to the tent for refreshments. But because I'm turning 50, those refreshments will not contain gin. Nope, it's filtered water for moi--gonna watch the waistline. And the liver. And the brain cells.
I'm saving my drinking time for the upcoming onslaught of relations due to fly in Mary Poppins style for my daughter's graduation--which coincidentally corresponds with? Yep, the birthday.
It's odd, this 50th birthday thing. It feels like a paradigm shift. I'm anticipating that at any moment, my teeth will disintegrate and bunions will bloom. I need a new storyline. My self-concept needs to realign, y'know? Instead of the spacey mop-top girl, I'm now the dotty senior with spectacles dangling on my bosom from a chain. Once an ingenue, I've become Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote.
And yet, oddly, I feel the creative furnace more acutely than ever. The Empress Chronicles, now in its third round of revision, feels solid and full-term.
Ah, the ever-reassessing spreadsheet of the late bloomer. Anybody out there as old as me? Got some advice? (Sage, or otherwise.)
