This Turning Fifty Thing

There's something about turning 50.  I don't know why, but there just is.  Most of my life, I've worried about how I looked, what I wore, what my weight was, who liked me, who didn't like me, if I looked like the perfect mom...and now...

Don't get me wrong, I still want to look nice and have good manners, but the things I'm concerned about have changed.  My priorities are different.  And I think I've become my mother and all manner of older women I've seen out in public.  I don't have to have make up on to leave the house and I might even go out in sweats and a pony tail.  But the worst thing is, I don't seem to have the filter on my mouth that used to be there.

Don't worry, I don't mean I cuss like a sailor or anything like that.  But I have opinions and I find myself expressing those opinions, when before, I would have never spoken such things.  I would have bitten my lip, gone my own way and shaken my head in silent wonder all the way home.  Now, I just say what I'm thinking.  I'm never rude or mean spirited about it, but I put it out there...yes I do.

Sometimes I come across people who move me so deeply that I have to say something to them.  Like the beautiful old man on the beach in St. Augustine.  I followed him around with my daughter until I got up to the nerve to approach him, tell him he was beautiful and ask if I could take his picture.  My daughter was completely mortified!  But people matter, and I want them to know that.  Even if I don't know them.  I've gotten this boldness that I didn't have when I was younger and busy raising my children.  Now, if I feel led to say something, there's no stopping me.

Or how about the time I came across an elderly gentleman in the rose garden, who had a crippled hand.  I just had to ask him what he did for a living, did he work with his hands?  I asked him to tell me a story of his life and took a picture of his hand.  He told me stories that made me cry and soon others gathered around to listen.  I just couldn't seem to stop myself.  This turning 50 thing has taken away that filter that used to be there!

I've grown past the point of worrying about what other people think of me.  Oh, I want to be liked and I'm a tenderhearted lover of people, but something in me wants to let others know what I'm thinking.  I don't know if it's that I've rounded the half century mark and I'm facing the second part of my life, but I feel like there are so many things that need to be said.  As a society, we've let our young people down in many ways.  We haven't told them of the important things in life.  We've let them believe that they can start out life, right after graduation, making a gazillion dollars and they don't even have to work for it.  Sex is blasé and women are objects.  It's every man for himself.

So I have things to say...and I say them.  I don't judge, but I have opinions, thoughts, ideas.  This turning 50 thing is tricky.  You have to strike a balance.  You're not old, but you're wiser.  I actually feel more alive now than ever.  The politically correct thing to do today, is to accept and be supportive of anything and everything that comes down the pike.  Everything is a gray area.  There is no right or wrong.  But, you see, some things are right and some are just plain wrong.  And if we don't say it, then our young people will continue to go farther and farther away from the truth.

So there...I've put it out there.  And some might think I'm mean...but guess what?  That doesn't bother me as much as it would have when I was younger!

Don't worry!  I'm still in His lap!