It used to be you were considered middle-aged when you were 40 years old. That is, after all, halfway to 80. But now middle age has been redefined as 60 to 75. Which is, of course, halfway to 120 to 150 (even though 150 is a goal most people really do not want to set).
For a lot of us, the biggest milepost is 50.
Now the world gives you clues that you have reached a milepost.
The first is that you carry a membership card in the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). You don't just turn 50 in the USA. You are officially notified that you are now old enough to be in the AARP. With draft notices no longer being sent and an alert postal service, the AARP card is the worst thing you can get in the mail.
All your mail changes. You’ll start getting brochures from the Garden of Memories Mausoleum and Cemetery offering 30 percent off if you act now.
When you're 50, you test drive a Cadillac.
You make grunting sounds putting on your socks.
You buy relaxed-fit jeans.
You occasionally find that you have to put an extra hole in your belt and that your pants need to be let out half an inch every month (30 inches in five years).
You drop games where you and the ball move, and take up games that feature carts and soft drinks (like golf).
A hike is a walk to the end of the block.
At restaurants, you can't read the menu (your close vision is shot), can't hear the specials (your hearing is going) and can’t remember what they are anyway.
You mistakenly go to movies you've already seen, but it doesn't matter anymore. It's just as good, just as fresh and new, the second or third time. It's called short-term memory loss syndrome. Another name is CRS: Can't Remember Stuff.
It takes you three tries to call your own kids their correct names.
You begin to lie not only about your age, but about your children’s as well.
You see a withered old codger on the street, and you realize he was one year ahead of you in high school or (worse) that he was in the class behind you.
You may experience the onset of grumpiness. You start yelling: “Get off my lawn, you little creep!” And you tell the fast food clerk to just give you an old fashioned burger and not one of those things with the fancy names they have on the menu.
You have never watched the latest TV sitcom because it comes on after your bedtime.
You start watching the Food Network.
You fall asleep at parties and at church and, to be honest, everywhere you go.
You've reached an age where, on your birthday, you have to put some of the candles on the sides of the cake.
Now that you are 50, take yourself by the hand, and turn away from the habits of a lifetime, in favor of a new life. You can enjoy:
The coolest-ever phone.
The comfiest-ever new mattress.
Real maple syrup. (Get the raw honey, while you're at it.)
Shoes that play footsie with your feetsies.
Fabulous teeth.
A catered Christmas. It IS OK. It IS still Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Passover, Halloween, Arbor Day, Grandparents Day, Boxing Day …
Time-share, downhill skis, the gourmet club, and football games at the Stadium.
The 9 o'clock movie.
Do not pay for economy size anymore! It's not economical to buy a bag of chocolate chips that can make enough cookies to stock all the airline lounges in the Western Hemisphere until 2014. Here's to no more … more. Give it up.
Let someone else do it.
Let someone else clean it.
Let someone else make the payments.
Let it go.
Say good-bye to:
Super-sized fries (no one in the minivan to take the last handful, or take the edge off the guilt).
The minivan. Time to downsize.
A one-horse open sleigh.
A Costco membership.
The gym ultra-membership.
The dog, the shoes.
Those seven, or was it nine, unfinished projects.
Your very own chickens (really, really not).
Another cat.
Another cap.
Another hobby.
A bigger flat screen.
A bigger boat.
A bigger mortgage.
More than 700 calories in one dessert before bed.
Double cheese.
