On Fifty

In response to the resounding question that seems to be on every one's lips today:

"no"

"...fifty is NOT nifty...

There.  I've said it and I'm not taking it back.

Since I don't play very well with children my own age - I haven't really experienced the strange association of these two sing-song words... nifty ... fifty.

Arent' there other words that rhyme with fifty? 

What about "thrifty"  - now I like that - it sounds Benjamin Franklin - ish -  I guess someone of my age would.
Maybe someone could ask me if fifty was thrifty.

Perhaps someone could flatter me by giving me credit for possessing the energy to by flamboyant by asking if "fifty is shifty?"

Ten years ago, I was surprised by how good forty felt.  I really felt that it was possibly the best time of my life.  That's why I am so perplexed by this new decade... I don't feel like I did when I was forty.

Needless to say, I am not warming to this new age very well.

"Fifty" just seems old - it sounds old.

Heck, it is old!

When my Dad was my age, all his children were out of high school and only one late arrival was still at home... he had four grandchildren already.

Lately, I have come to the realization that I probably will not be around on this earth as long as I have been around already. 

It's like the third day of a week's vacation:  The first day paces along amazingly slow.  You rise early and keep checking to be sure the time is right - you can't believe that time is moving so slowly. 

Day two is closer to normal, but you keep saying "oh I've got almost a whole week here after today".

Then you wake up for the third day and the day passes like one of those stop-action-photo films.... the sun just glides across the sky.
You wake up the next morning realizing that technically, it is your last full day of vacation... then it's over.

Life's brevity is becoming more apparent to me.

There certainly are some good things about getting older.  Old guys can get away with a lot of things.
Fred over there can pee his pants and folks will just say ... "oh he's just an old guy"

You can belch ... or do a lot worse ... in public and when little children point and laugh, their Mommies will say, "shhhhh dear... he's just old".

Maybe that's what worries me about getting old... I don't want that to become an excuse.
Dad used to lament about an old guy in the Bible by the name of Barzillai (2 Samuel 19) he had been good to King David during one of his times of distress and when it was over, David invited him to come to Jerusalem, to live under his care for awhile.  The octogenarian used his age as an excuse, pointing out that he could discern very well, he couldn't taste what he ate or drank and he couldn't hear the good singing that filled the king's palace.  Barzillia seemed to stop living before he died.

I don't want to do that.

Even if life doesn't always leave me feeling "nifty" - I pray that God will help me to drain all the goodness out of every day He grants me.