Fifty Not Out

Finding meaning in unlikely places, half a century in.

As a teacher of English as a foreign language, I watched with fascination as my own children acquired English and Portuguese side by side. I admired their innate ability to spontaneously produce the present perfect in English, a notoriously difficult tense to master for non-native speakers. I also envied their ability to roll their Portuguese Rs and produce authentically nasal diphthongs. I admit to feeling slightly disappointed that my son’s first compound noun in English was dog poo, though. Our constant warnings not to tread in it on the streets of Lisbon, ever since he’d learnt to walk, had clearly penetrated his consciousness so profoundly that it loomed large in his early understanding of the world.

The tables turned on us as parents of a teen, and a preteen who thought she was sixteen, as we approached fifty. We had to learn a whole new vocabulary to keep the channels of communication open, or at least to understand what everybody was on about. As far as I could make out, if I slayed it was good, but getting roasted, wasn’t. Verbalising ‘side-eye’, or using any abbreviation that predated predictive text in a WhatsApp message was, frankly, embarrassing - or in modern parlance, totally cringe - ikr?

The generation gap continued to widen into what at times felt like a gaping chasm. Recommendations offered with the best of intentions - a song to listen to, or the suggestion to take an umbrella because it was pouring with rain - were generally met with a response that embodied the eye-roll emoji. Getting everyone in the same space, willingly, to watch Top Gun: Maverick in summer 2022 represented a huge triumph. Even if it was only temporary.

If language helps us to express who we are, for me, approaching fifty heralded a new way of articulating my relationship with the world. I began to confront what, if anything, this milestone actually signified. Eventually, I concluded that no defining metamorphosis had taken place, or was required; I’d simply become the person I’d unconsciously been travelling towards all along.

Deteriorating eyesight and less-than-dense bones aside, I was grateful to have made it that far. I also had the sense that I was shedding a skin that no longer served me. I noticed myself sweating the small stuff less and paring my priorities down to pleasantly manageable proportions.

If I caught myself mourning the lost bloom of youth, or grieving times or people that will never return, I remembered how hard being twenty-five actually felt: predominantly like uprooted seaweed caught in the undertow of an excitable, but choppy, sea.

While aspiring to acquire wise-old-owl status, my only noteworthy epiphany was that bothering to keep up with the Kardashians was a monumental waste of time. I say this with no judgement, because I spent vast swathes of maternity leave transfixed by their every move.

These days, I find such wasted time troublesome. There’s still so much to do! There’s more delicious food and good wine to savour. There are more tree canopies to walk under and wildflowers to appreciate; more sand to feel between my toes and wind to mess up my hair. There’s still more to give. There’s more to share.

A fizzy drink might have been promised at the end of this walk.

It turned out that the prelude to fifty was far more existentially fraught than the eventuality itself - even though, as my son unkindly pointed out, I was one year closer to the retirement home he’s threatening to put me in. Regardless, if it’s fully catered, I’m all in.

Meanwhile, I’m benefiting from the mellowing effects of maturity: Recently, I was able to listen to all of Sultans of Swing without being sent into a blind rage. A line must be drawn somewhere, however, and that line is Money for Nothing. Gentlemen, I admire your musicianship, but there are few extenuating circumstances that can excuse that earworm. And none whatsoever for that headband, Mark Knopfler. Oh, did I say that out loud? Middle age is so wonderfully freeing! Or perhaps just the gateway to the inevitable loss of verbal filters.

In the days following my fiftieth birthday, I was feeling pretty chipper. One more rotation around the sun had been well celebrated and life had been affirmed.

There’s also a lot of cake to be eaten.

Walking to my students’ house for an early morning lesson that week, I had a spring in my step as I let my mind wander - until the suspiciously soft landing of one foot on the calçada. I’d trodden in a freshly laid, very squelchy dog poo.

I might have changed in discernible ways since my son was a toddler, but the pavements in my neighbourhood certainly had not.

This incident had every potential to ruin my day. I opted to treat it as a metaphor.

Looking to the future, I remain optimistic that there’s much to anticipate. I’m equally certain that the path ahead will be littered with obstacles and difficulties. But here’s the choice: to wallow in the shit, or clean up as best you can and chart a course forward - watching your step all the while.

Especially if you live in Lisbon.