The text below was my birthday Facebook post a few days ago. I reached a round age, maybe too round for my taste, but that’s life, take it or leave it or in Romanian, csf, n’ai csf.
They say that at 50 you should be a serious person. To look at the world from the height of your wisdom, from your cloud full of life experiences, above everyone younger than you, filled with wise advice, with your body still strong, maybe just a little rusty around the joints. Or be a weirdo that the 20-30-year-olds look at as an antique, and the 60-70-year-olds as a young man who still has more to grow. And you, the 50-year-old, feel like a bipolar, sometimes green as a fir tree, unable to recognize your wrinkles and white hair when you look in the mirror, or bent like a willow, tormented by bodily pain, other times tormented by existential questions , genre: “what am I doing in my life?” or “how long is it ahead?”. If the 50-year-old we’re talking about is a woman, the questions are even more, the abyss deeper, and every sunrise more precious.
In my 20s I thought I was smart and misunderstood. At 30 I straightened my shoulders and fought. At 40 I thought I was wise. And now, at 50, I know that I know nothing. As a true Capricorn who polished perfection to the point of dulling it, I entered life already old and I fell in childhood later, like a female Benjamin Button with whims. I stayed in my shell for many years, not daring to take out anything but a bulging eye at a time, and that so I wouldn’t stumble along the way. I discovered that I could write and that I had something to communicate to the world at 44, so I started a blog. I took my first dance steps at 45 and first appeared on stage dancing at 47. I flew on a plane for the first time at 48 and stood with my nose pressed to the window and my mouth open in amazement the entire flight.
Among the ancient Jews, the jubilee was celebrated at 50 years, when debts were forgiven and slaves were freed. Symbolically, it is a new beginning, freed from the “debts” of the past and the “slavery” of the customs up until then. And since 50 is the new 40, watch out, world, I’m coming, brand new and reinvented!
