April

I turn fifty this month.

I don’t have a problem turning fifty.

I don’t.

I do have a problem with the perception of fifty.

I mean, am I thrilled I’m nearly the age Rue McClanahan was on The Golden Girls? Or Wilford Brimley in Cocoon?

I don’t know. Maybe?

I mean, let’s be honest. Blanche Devereaux was meant to evoke Blanche DuBois, right? And who doesn’t want to be Vivien Leigh?

And Wilford Brimley. If that dude wasn’t born an old curmudgeon with a thick white mustache, I’ll eat this edition of Uptight Suburbanite.

I remember seeing Cher on Oprah years ago. Oprah, herself ebullient at turning fifty, asked Cher if she felt the same way.

Cher did not feel the same way.

Oprah tried persuading Cher to her point of view.

But Cher wasn’t having it.

She told Oprah that, having been both rich and poor, she’d rather be rich. And having been both forty and fifty, she’d rather be forty.

If you can be Oprah or Cher, be Cher.

Always be Cher.

But fifty isn’t awful, right? When I tell people I will have no more husbands, kids, or pets, they give me a “right on!”

Rather than, you know, persuade me I’m young enough for love and babies.

And a looming empty nest beckons me beyond the waves.

Whether a Siren or two is hanging out there, I don’t yet know.

“I’m only going with you,” my husband quipped as I booked travel plans to drop our daughter at college, “to make sure you actually leave her.”

Ha.

But look at Jennifer Aniston. Or Jennifer Lopez. They’re killing it.

Although just one of them is following my “no more husbands” rule.

Wait. Do I need to be a Jennifer to kill it at fifty?

Well. We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?

But it’s that perception of fifty I find inescapable.

Like the workout I found a few weeks ago.

I coach a class. A boxing class for people with Parkinson’s disease. You might read about it here in the Uptight. This month. Maybe later.

I am always on the lookout for new exercises for my boxers.

So when I saw exercises billed as a must for the over-fifty set, that felt like a win. I could use it for my boxers. I could use it for me.

I could use it for Cher.

If, you know, she asked. Or came to boxing.

Nah. Maybe not. I feel like Cher would give me the Moonstruck “Snap out of it!” slap if I tried that on her.

My boxers might, too.

I perused the exercises anyway.

They were…condescending.

I mean, come on. A dumbbell or two never killed anyone.

You know what did?

Wilford Brimley in The Firm.

And dead bug isn’t so much an exercise as it is a stretch. Why would this website even put –

Oh. Wait. I get it.

Dead bug. Because us over-fifty people are almost dead, right?

Dead bug. That’s cute.

You know, we could tell Cher you said that. I think Cher will do a little more than Moonlight slap you.

And Wilford Brimley. If he was still alive, he wouldn’t even bother hiring the assassins from The Firm.

He’d do it himself. You don’t spend your life that grumpy without knocking a whippersnapper or two off your lawn.

Besides. He lived another thirty-five years after Cocoon.

That’s Taylor Swift’s entire life.

Wait.

I – I could live Taylor Swift’s entire life?

Sorry, guys. I have to go.

I have a birthday to celebrate.