I danced and danced and danced

I danced and danced and danced post image

I turned fifty last week. An old high school acquaintance wrote on my Facebook wall, “It’s just a number.” To make me feel better, I guess.

But I don’t feel bad about turning fifty. I feel excited, to be honest. When you’re in your late forties (or thirties or twenties, for that matter), you’re creaking towards the end of something. Queue up the tired sound of a roller coaster slowing down and lurching you towards the end of the ride. Forty-eight, forty-nine, forty-nine-and-a-half. But guess what? The roller coaster isn’t stopping—it’s speeding back up! And it’s going down a whole new track!

Do I feel like waving my arms and screaming as I head to the first big drop? I do. You should have seen me in April, at the joint 50th birthday party that Chris and I threw for ourselves. It was a dance party in a warehouse because there is nothing to make you feel younger than throwing a dance party in a warehouse. Truth be told, there was a lot of work involved in turning a sawdusty, mud-caked, tractor-filled warehouse into a place where your friends can show up in silk blouses and heels. A few afternoons of scrubbing and mopping, and much moving to the side of heavy equipment. But it’s surprising what you can do with a few twinkle lights strung between sawhorses, rented barstools set around a bar made from scaffolding, and 100 candles in jars from Ikea.

I danced like crazy that night. I danced and danced and danced. First to the set that Chris’ band played, and then to a mostly 80s and 90s playlist that didn’t let up. By the time Hole’s “Violet” came on, I was a whirling, fist-pumping, Courtney Love-like lunatic. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty. I’m sure my friends assumed that I’d had a few too many Rhubarb Collinses. I hadn’t! I just love to dance, and I have a husband who loves to dance. We went to high school together (although we didn’t date until the end of college) so lots of high school friends were at the party, lots of fellow turning-50-year-olds. We women did our Molly Ringwald kick-flips; the guys did their hunched-over, bent-armed ska moves. We danced until my hair flattened and I was a sweaty mess for goodbye hugs and it was the best way I can imagine to usher in my fifties.

50 feels like a bigger transition than 30 or 40 did. My life didn’t change much with those birthdays. By my 30th birthday, I was pregnant with my second kid. I became the mother of a teenager the week I turned 40, which was a double whammy of feeling older. Still, for both of those birthdays I was already embedded in the life that would follow for the rest of the decade.

This time I’m on the precipice of something. We have one kid out of college, and one finished with her freshman year. (Though she’s home for the summer. Whoopee!) I’m heading into what looks like my last year of homeschooling Mr. T. That’s a major thing if you consider that I’ve been homeschooling kids for eighteen years. For twenty-three if you count from the time my oldest was born, which any homeschooler will tell you that you may as well do.

For twenty three years I’ve been filling my days with other people. Wonderful people—my favorite people in the world. I’ve been giving them what they need, from diaper changes, to rides to ballet, to help with their college applications, to the zillion and one other piddly and imperative things that mothers do, day after day after day.

Now here come my fifties, and guess who I’ll have more time for? (Me!) I’ll be able to write in the middle of the day, just when my writing mojo is always kicking in, when I usually have to walk away from my desk. I’ve dreamed of this for twenty-three years. No wonder I feel like dancing.

Have you read Sandra Tsing Loh’s essay on menopause, “The Bitch is Back”?  If you’re in your forties or fifties, I insist that you do. It’s hilarious and over the top and utterly spot on. Loh explores the fascinating idea (based on her reading of Christiane Northrup’s The Wisdom of Menopause) that it isn’t a huge hormonal “change” that signifies menopause. Instead, it’s the lifting of the atypical hormonal cloud of our fertile years—the cloud that makes us women so willing to nurture others for over three decades. And how menopause is really the return of our true, normal selves. (Remember the girl you were at eight? That self.) Wait until you get to the part in the essay where Aunt Carol flings the leg of lamb out the window. You will laugh out loud. You will totally get it.

“Fertility’s amped-up reproductive hormones helped Aunt Carol 30 years ago to begin her mysterious automatic weekly ritual of roasting lamb just so and laying out 12 settings of silverware with an OCD-like attention to detail while cheerfully washing and folding and ironing the family laundry. No normal person would do that—look at the rest of the family: they are reading the paper and lazing about like rational, sensible people. And now that Aunt Carol’s hormonal cloud is finally wearing off, it’s not a tragedy, or an abnormality, or her going crazy—it just means she can rejoin the rest of the human race: she can be the same selfish, non-nurturing, non-bonding type of person everyone else is. (And so what if get-well casseroles won’t get baked, PTAs will collapse, and in-laws will go for decades without being sent a single greeting card? Paging Aunt Carol! The old Aunt Carol!)”

Snort! I wish Aunt Carol could have been there with me at the party, rocking out to Hole. Not caring that she was a sweaty mess. Thrashing her arms with me when Courtney screamed You should learn HOW TO SAY NO! She would have loved it.

Tonight I’m taking off on a redeye to Cleveland. I’m headed to the River Teeth Nonfiction Conference in Ashland, Ohio. I’m a tiny bit terrified because I won’t know a soul, and I’m staying in a dorm with strangers. But Cheryl Strayed will be speaking! And my online friend Kate Hopper too! And people will be geeking out on creative nonfiction all weekend! Happy 50th to me.

Fifty is not just a number. It’s a dance party. Crank that song up, baby! Let’s dance.

P.S. Paging Sally O’Malley to the dance floor. Aunt Carol and I want to join you in some kicks.

26 comments… add one
  • Kim May 28, 2015 @ 10:29

    Happy 50th Birthday!!!

    Thanks for the link to the essay, can’t wait to read it 🙂 Enjoy your time in Cleveland.

    • patricia May 29, 2015 @ 6:58

      Oh, please do read the essay, Kim! It’s such an interesting perspective, and really well written.

  • Heather May 28, 2015 @ 13:21

    Love all of this. A hearty yes!

  • Chris May 28, 2015 @ 13:46

    Yes! Sometimes you ARE Courtney Love. I love you you crazy 50 year old!

    • patricia May 29, 2015 @ 7:04

      If anyone knows my inner Courtney, it’s you, sweetie. You know I only married you because you’re a good dancer, right? Looking forward to dancing with you til you’re like Grandpa Zaballos at our wedding. Grandpa Zaballos dancing like he’s in The Jam…

  • Deborah Casado May 28, 2015 @ 16:13

    Loved it Tricia!

  • Lisa May 28, 2015 @ 19:33

    LOVED this. 40 is still a couple years off for me and my kids are still quite small. But I am super close to my mom who informs and refines my notions of aging and being old every day. Sending this to her now!

    • patricia May 29, 2015 @ 12:09

      I hope your mother reads the essay and enjoys it! So nice to see you here, you young thing! 😉

  • Lori May 28, 2015 @ 23:58

    Happy 50th! I have no doubt you’ll rock the conference like you rocked the dance floor! Have a blast! 🙂

  • Gabriele Allen May 29, 2015 @ 0:34

    Right on Trish with your caption of the 50th scene. Authentic and entertaining as usual. Love it! thank you.

  • Nina May 29, 2015 @ 4:25

    This was a great message: “Fifty is not just a number. It’s a dance party. Crank that song up, baby! Let’s dance.”

    Hope the conference is great! Report back, please!

    • patricia May 29, 2015 @ 11:54

      Thanks, Nina! Have you tried out any of the archived lectures on the River Teeth website? They’re excellent and the reason I wanted to come! I’m sure you’d enjoy them!

  • Sisters From Another Mister May 29, 2015 @ 4:31

    HUGE happy birthday to you … cannot wait to see where the next fifty take you.
    YOU have the best attitude, and just such a fabulous way with words.
    Happy Happy to you, so glad to have been along for the ride xxxx

    • patricia May 29, 2015 @ 11:57

      Thank you, Nicole, and thanks especially for coming along for the ride for such a long time!

  • Stacey May 29, 2015 @ 10:06

    Happy Birthday! The party sounds like it was roaring fun (are we still allowed to use sayings like that).

    • patricia May 29, 2015 @ 12:07

      Well, you may not be allowed to say things like that, Stacey, but according to Loh’s essay, I can say whatever I want. I’m fifty! 😉

  • CathyT May 29, 2015 @ 12:35

    Happy Birthday to you! I love anything and all that you share with us on your blog and I will now check out, as always, your links. Horray for you to have your daughter back for the summer. My oldest just moved to Colorado for do his dream job of working for the railroad all the live long day…. Go follow your dreams, the ones you had when you were 8 years old and the ones you have now at 50!

    • patricia Jun 3, 2015 @ 16:43

      Thank you, Cathy T! Oh, I remember you writing about your son’s love of trains way back when. How thrilling to see how far he’s taken it–although I’m sure you miss him like crazy. So much letting go to send them off on their dreams. Hugs to you!

  • Carrie Jun 3, 2015 @ 14:36

    What an absolutely wonderful blog post. It made me feel so happy to read it. This perspective needs to be shared widely and makes me look forward to my own 50th coming up in 2018, the year I will officially be the mother of not just one but two teenagers. I can’t tell you how much I love the idea of 50 being the beginning of something rather than an ending. I’m glad you had such a great birthday and hope you’ll post about the conference. Cheers!

    • patricia Jun 3, 2015 @ 16:46

      It’s a fascinating perspective, isn’t it, Carrie? Loh’s essay is full of her thrill for it, and I’m right there with her. The conference was fabulous–you should consider going one day! I’d like to write a post about it. P.S. An email from you has been at the top of my “must respond to” list for two months now! I’m so sorry–it’s been a crazy two months, but I always value the writing conversation with you.

  • Janet Jul 16, 2015 @ 20:03

    I can still feel the concrete floor vibrate to all that moving and shaking at your 50th. Dance away dear friend, dance, and may I always be present for the big ones. J

    • patricia Jul 17, 2015 @ 14:50

      It meant so much to me to have you there, Janet, for both the prep and the party. Next time I dance with you, I want it to be in Mexico!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.