Fifty Golden Pieces-An Introduction

My name is Ty and I am fifty years old.*

I know fifty sounds really old and scary. But I am here to assure you that it is neither of those things if you don’t want it to be. I have felt pretty much the same since I was nineteen, specifically, but that is largely because I had to grow up quickly. It is amazing how the perception of time has accelerated. Remember when you were a child and the summer felt like The Odyssey? That doesn’t last. Context is your dear friend and your mortal enemy.

I am the very same person I’ve always been in many ways. At least since I can remember being me. Of course we are always in a state of constant change so it is just as accurate to say that I am as much the same now as I am totally different from who I was at, say, twenty-one. I remember being twenty-one and realizing that I had fulfilled a large chunk of my youthful dreams. I had to learn how to reinvent. And I believe I might be at another reinvention point now.

What’s different now than thirty? At thirty I felt complete but I had no idea that I wasn’t even close. At fifty I am finally settling into being a whole person (just as all the parts begin to fail). I am similarly feeling complete but now I know that I will never get close. Blessings and curses, Ignorance versus awareness.

Unfortunately, I cannot begin to forecast how I might feel at eighty. But, to be honest, I couldn’t and didn’t forecast how fifty might feel thirty years ago. Looking far ahead is not a pleasant thing to do anymore. Getting truly old, sickly, brittle, poor and vulnerable is terrifying. As I’ve learned from my elders, aging sucks. I think I have aches and pains now? I ain’t even begun to pay those dues. I think some young folks are sketchy now? I do not look forward to fearing them. I may have some plateau years ahead but it’s going to be more chutes than ladders soon enough.

But, fifty? Irrefutable cake walk from my perspective. My advice to you kids: enjoy yourselves. I know it sounds cliche as hell but, seriously, the ride will be over before you even realize it begun. Maybe this is more warning than advice, more “Ty talking to you in the future” style. 

Customize everything. Optimize everything. Simplify everything.

It is the very same question
Posed over and over
About how to pull the
very next maneuver 
History’s evidence clearly
dictates the careful approach
Time seems an ally
A non-depleting well of plenty

There’s something else
Something deeper and wider
than the invincibility of youth
Mortality
When you can see it first appear
As sails on the horizon
You realize that time is a liar
who has always hated you

* Late October