I was born Monday, March 8th, 1965 at 9:10 a.m. at West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park, Illinois (just outside of Chicago). The night before I had been kicking my mom a lot (sorry, Mom) and she couldn’t sleep, so she and my dad sat up and watched the news coverage of the events in Selma. That night she went into labor, woke my dad at 5 a.m., they checked into the hospital at 6 a.m. and the rest is history. My dad waited in the waiting room with the other expectant dads (and probably smoked). He says it was snowing that morning.
A half a century. Jeez. A half a CENTURY. I am trying to figure this out. How can I be 50? It sounds so OLD. Generation X turns 50. I feel like I have 20 years to live (on the other hand, I can’t even remember 30 – it seems as distant as ancient Rome).
I feel like the same person I have always been, of course, although I know I have changed over time – I am more sensitive to violence in movies, for example, and I know I don’t take an interest in certain things the way I used to. What, this? I’ve seen it before. When you’re young, you worry so much about being “cool,” whatever that means, and as you get older, you just don’t care. Whom am I trying to impress? I’m just me. I have two co-workers right now who are 32 and 33, and I find myself censoring myself around them: I think of something to say and then realize that if I bring it up, they probably won’t know what I’m talking about and I’ll have to explain it and… oh, never mind.
That’s what makes me feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder: I remember what this town looked like 30 years ago, when they were infants! I remember stupid stuff that didn’t stand the test of time and is basically forgotten (Randee of the Redwoods, anyone?). Stuff from my childhood in the '70s (everything seems so much nicer now – we never had that when I was a kid). I remember when there was ONE area code for the entire greater Chicago area… and then in 1989 when I was 24 they created a NEW area code just for the suburbs, and it was a BIG DEAL. This town used to have a drive-in theater (long gone before I got here, but you could see where it used to be). I remember when the big retail strip was mostly farmland, and when everything started to change from little shops to big franchises.
I try to think about the future and I can’t see it. The cost of living is so much higher now. It’s harder to get accepted to college (and harder to pay for it). What does this have to do with education? When I was a baby, my dad’s bank would hire anybody with a high school diploma and train them up. By the time he retired some 35 years later, he said you had to have an MBA just to get an interview.
I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m babbling now.
Things are undeniably better than they used to be – we have a higher standard of living for more people than ever before in human history, better health care, more food than we can eat, more entertainment than we can possibly need or have time for, technology that we don’t know how to put to best use, just more information and more choices about everything in general. First world problems, right? We still have so many problems, but at least we address our problems in a way that didn’t happen in earlier generations. We can communicate with people we’ll never meet face-to-face. 
Anyway. I dimly recall having some anxiety when I turned 40, but I remember thinking, “Oh well, I’m not thirtysomething any more.” Fifty, wow. I made my 50-something co-workers laugh when I told them that I feel I’m supposed to start wearing matronly dresses and pearls now. And yes, I have already been contacted by the AARP. :dubious:
Oh, well. Wish me a happy birthday, I guess. Here goes nothin’. Where are my Ray-Bans? Oh yeah: 
Nuh-uh, not me! My 50-something co-worker said, “Oh, I’ve been getting those for years. I just throw them away.” So I did. I won’t be an “RP” for another 15 years (maybe 17 if our new governor has any say in it).