You know you’ve turned 50 when….
… you google “turning 50 jokes” and the results are just depressing.
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Well, I turned fifty last month. Honestly, I could stop this blog entry with that simple statement, just to show how much it means to me. Age has never held much weight for me. Also, for the past six months, talking about my age on stage, I’ve said I’m fifty instead of forty-nine. I normalized being fifty before it happened.

I’ve often thought of something Dustin Hoffman said on Inside the Actor’s Studio about getting older. Age never meant much to him, either. When he turned twenty, he could easily see himself at forty. At thirty, easily see himself at sixty. Forty, eighty. Fifty… he was pushing it then, but he could see himself at a hundred. It wasn’t until he turned sixty that he knew, no matter what, he was closer to the end than to the beginning, but it gave him a sense of peace.

Now that I’m fifty, I don’t feel any different, but also I do. It’s a weird combination. Physically, in many ways I’m in the best shape of my life, but when I get hurt- and that can happen easily, at any time- I take longer to recover. I don’t get sick often, but when I do, it hits a little harder, lasts a little longer. Unless I make a conscious effort, I grunt when I stand up, grunt when I sit down. I clear my throat dozens of times per day and I have nothing to say. I sound old.

When I do feel old, mentally, it’s mostly because of external factors, the people around me. A few of my co-workers are in their early twenties and, as I’ve mentioned before, having adult colleagues not much older than my daughter is fucking weird. One day, they told me about a pub crawl they’d gone on together, and I had moment of sadness that I hadn’t been invited. A brief moment before I laughed at myself. Why would a 22-year-old invite his fifty-year-old co-worker out for a fun night out on the town?

I have another co-worker who is six years older than me and she’ll often make comments to me like, oh, you know how it is for people our age! And when she does, my gut reaction is, slow down there grandma, we are not peers. Except of course we are.

Speaking of co-workers six years older than me, back when I separated from my first wife, a woman I worked with admitted she’d long had a crush on me. She’d married her high school sweetheart and could see herself dumping him for me. (Yes, this conversation took place several hours into a night at a bar.) But she also knew that, as wild and as passionate as it would be, before too long it would cool into the same type of relationship she already had, so why throw all that away?

It was and is one of the most depressingly honest things I’ve ever heard someone say. In any case, I reminded her that, at 32, I was single for the first time in my adult life, I’d just ended a 14-year long relationship, and no one should be throwing anything away to be with me. It was a sweet encounter, though, one that obviously stuck with me. Flattering for the ego at a needful moment as well; she may have been older, but, being Swedish, looked younger. Swedes are great investments that way.

After that job ended, I didn’t see her for years. Then, recently at Maffia Comedy Club, I was walking through the lobby when I heard, “Ryan!” I turned and there she was, smiling ear to ear, just as sweet as ever. She was there with a bunch of friends, including her husband, who didn’t look happy at all to shake my hand. It was nice to see her, but, Swedish or no, she was clearly approaching sixty and, dick that I am, it made me feel old.

I suppose it’s always the people around me that have made me feel my age. I’ve often said that I never feel as old as I do in comedy clubs, especially at open mics where most of the rookies are under thirty. To paraphrase a famous stoner, I get older, the rookies stay the same age.

Now, this may be me overdosing on cope, and there’s no way for me to know how to feel otherwise, but… at fifty, I feel younger than my parents’ generation when they hit fifty. They were obsessed with age. First, it was, “don’t trust anyone over thirty.” Then they got into their thirties and the angst set in- see the film The Big Chill and the tv series thirtysomething. Then it was, “forty is the new twenty” and then, “life begins at fifty,” and then they stopped kidding themselves.

It’s probably because – despite the obesity rate – each generation is healthier than the one before it. More exercise, less bad habits like smoking and boozing, more access to better meds. Again, generally speaking. You can see it in the Sex and the City “girls” who are now as old as The Golden Girls. Hell, Betty White was the “kid” on that show and she was 55 at the time.

Although, to be fair, the Golden Girls didn’t get to enjoy the same access to cosmetic surgery. Everyone can do whatever they want to themselves but I shake my head every time, especially when I see a guy that’s had work done. Then again, I am speaking from a position of privilege as I happen to be one of those guys who ages like wine.

I’m on the Al Pacino bell curve and I’m still on the way up, thank you very much. But that down-curve, woof. Well, my wife will get another good thirty years out of me! Just as long as my snoring doesn’t lead to her smothering me in my sleep.