I turned 50 a week ago. I marked the occasion at an Airbnb rental house in Indiana with my husband, kiddos, and my brothers. It was the first time I had celebrated a birthday with both of my brothers since we all lived under one roof as children. We ordered great food (takeout because, COVID). We played rambunctious games of Uno until we were worn out.
These components of this 50th birthday celebration didn’t even exist in my mind when I turned 48. After all, just two short years ago, there was no COVID, no brother living in Indiana, and no reason to choose to spend this most auspicious birthday in an Airbnb playing the card game of my childhood. If I imagined anything for 50, it was of my husband and me (and maybe the kiddos, too) soaking up the sun in a non-English-speaking international location with Instagram-worthy backdrops at every turn. I would have ‘returned’ to my ideal weight and posed in culture-conscious outfits that complemented the toned arms and well-earned wisdom of my new decade. My hair would be a shimmery silver freeform TWA and my feet would kiss the earth as I walked with the assuredness of a woman whose third and fourth books (and maybe fifth and sixth) had already been launched successfully into the world, doing the work of changing hearts while expanding minds.
That’s what I imagined 50 would be. But the real 50 was none of that.
Nevertheless, this 50 was just right. NOT perfect. Still striving toward toned arms and books launched and international destinations. Still wearing masks. (Yes, I’m happily vaxxed but my whole crew doesn’t yet qualify. And newsflash: COVID is not over.) And my hair is a less dramatic but wholly age-appropriate salt-and-pepper mini-‘fro that I sometimes temporarily color blue or silver.
This real 50 is one I cherish in a way that I couldn’t at 48 partly because I hadn’t yet lived my COVID 49th year that was filled with a good deal of non-COVID drama and trauma as well. What all of that was will likely remain unwritten because all that’s lived needn’t always be shared. And not all of it is mine to share anyway. But I was forged in the fire and, by the grace of God, I’ve come out the other side with all of my loved ones who sat at the dining room table playing Uno with me last Saturday. A miracle and a blessing
As I get to know this new year and new decade of mine, I imagine great things. But 50 means that I’ve lived long enough to know that other things will also come. I’m trusting that I’ll be ready for it all when it does.
It makes me think about my foremothers and forefathers in Galveston, Texas who were greeted with the news of their release from chattel slavery on June 19, 1865, fully two and a half years after it had been proferred. Freedom brought elation and an opportunity to dream but also filled so many with the realization that, though they were free of their physical enslavement, they had so many loved ones lost to them, perhaps forever. They had to learn to negotiate a way forward in a land that despised them, lied to them, and labeled them as the country’s enemy. It was a difficult freedom, and even as they grasped hold of and it, it flinched, pulled out its claws, and swiped.
I’m immeasurably grateful to all the ancestors I will never know this side of eternity for their willingness to walk by faith out along their bold, fragile, and wild dreams for tomorrow. That I can choose joy, pursue audacious dreams, and love my family is a gift they have given me. I stand at 50, free to be myself in my glorious imperfections, because of them.