Turning fifty can be a stressful event all on its own. It begins the time that the American Association of Retired Persons or AARP begins its assault, emphasizing the fact that you are no longer 40-something. Mail offers and emails urge you to join. Isn’t fifty the new thirty-five? Aren’t most 50-year-olds not retired, but working full-time, making it day by day, paycheck to paycheck, and accepting retirement will bring new adventures in foodstuffs, cat food, day-old bread, and sandwich meat butts.

For those of us working, thinking about retirement out there somewhere in the future, contemplating what Social Security benefits remain, paying what we can into a supplementary retirement account, and possibly paying off college tuition, are leaving it up to aliens arriving or the end of the world, we don’t have time to worry.

What is retirement? Google definitions include permanently leaving the workforce, leaving your job, leaving active work life. If we are living longer, don’t we have more to contribute? And what is work? Does that only mean going somewhere into an office or other location? Can one be engaged in work, simply living, and involved in the day-to-day activities of life? Isn’t there enough to do without actively engaging in the world of work?

We are redesigning what work means, where work happens, and measuring productivity and outcomes versus the quality of life and living – the revolution has begun. We have questioned the meaning and purpose of work.

I like my days to open like a shy bud. Black coffee delivered, listening to the news, in bed cat-like stretching, then yoga. Perhaps a bit more coffee, shower, and dressing – that is the start of a great day. If I squeezed in exercise, weights, or cardio, it would make a perfect beginning to any day.

Gratitude is a powerful mindset tool, but I struggle with acknowledging the gift of gratitude with the birthdays that keep on coming. I want to live, but the realities of gravity and societal norms around aging are sobering, particularly when you fool yourself into believing the real number is a lie. It cannot be true. And then you get a reminder, an ache, a crick, or fatigue revealing the truth, the body is not designed to last forever. The sack of water has an unknown expiration date. What does a young spirit in a maturing body do?

There are remedies if desired, in plastic surgery, nutritional supplements, creams, heat, cold treatments, acupressure, acupuncture, etc. If you have the cash, the variety of anti-aging therapies is unlimited.

Accepting and loving myself for all that I am, embracing self-awareness and accepting the promise was never forever, and holding onto faith that it will all be just as it should is a process of allowing myself grace and space to enjoy the wonder of the journey.

And in a culture where sixty-five is the new forty, right? Greater insult comes with questions like, have you had a fall? Are those your teeth or dentures? Can you walk a block, two blocks? Can you get up by yourself? Do you wear hearing aids?

L’Chaim!