Sometimes I wonder what happened to all the tail-end baby boomers. I do have a couple of friends my age or close to my age, but most of my friends are 10 or so years older than me or 10-15 years younger than me. The advantage is I learn a lot from watching those further down the road than I am. And I don’t (generally) feel (or act) my age.

One of the things I observed as I watched my older friends, was an almost universal avoidance of the half-century mark (which, for some reason, sounds SO much older than FIFTY). Nearly every one of them went out of town for their respective 50th birthdays. Not in a celebratory way, but quietly. They did not want to talk about or acknowledge it in any way.

And so, quite some time ago, I decided to not go quietly into the next half-century. I am going to embrace my advancing age and enter the next half century with gratitude, joy and optimism.

November kind of snuck up on me, so I missed the 50-days-to-50 countdown (oops). But nonetheless I have a few ideas in mind of several ways–maybe I can even come up with 50–to celebrate 50. Most of them are close to my heart and don’t need to be revealed. I may even accept suggestions (feel free to submit yours in the comments). One of them is being carried out right here on my blog, http://compulsivewriter.com/, as I plan to compulsively write or record 50 stories from my life experiences (thank you NoBloPoMo for getting me off to a decent start) thus far, both past and present.

Thank you for reading and for being an important part of my journey.

Little girl me. You’ve come a long way, baby.