Most of the thinking that has been written about the mystery, meaning and mostly, anxiety, associated with the extraordinarily emotionally loaded event of turning fifty years old seem, paradoxically, to eclipse those aspects of the complicated subject. In fact, most books about the landmark half-century birthday can be found in the humor section of any mortar and bricks or cyber bookstore, often developed with the same kind of glib, “grin-and-bear-it” approach that has also proven to be so popular among greeting card publishers. Although some books are more authentic than others, more honest and sensitive, much like the greeting cards, the books bring on the jokes and insults, and go straight for the aging jugular, shooting pointed messages about sagging, sheer survival, and certainly the end of sex. At best, most seem to commiserate, offering light-hearted suggestions for coping with the beginning of the end.
My interviews here, “Fifty On Fifty: The Milestone Conversations” explore the landscape of this second age of innocence, through the eyes, hearts and minds of those who are going through this “passage” taking a more heartfelt, spiritual, inspirational and psychological approach through interviews with almost eighty people – cutting deeply across demographic lines, representing urban, suburban and rural areas, and including driven, self-made successes as well as those who had swapped one dream for another and perhaps reached the milestone birthday with less material riches but other satisfactions. Among the many occupations of the profiled subjects: architect, chef, stay-at-home-mothers (and similarly, one father,) actor, writer, attorney, contractor, electrician, musician, physician, banker, house painter, retailers and other entrepreneurs, who openly shared their feelings, reactions, reflections, regrets and hopes for the future in relation to reaching their fiftieth year.
The interviews are particularly honest because they ask specifically difficult questions, all of which come out of my own unexpected experiences with getting older...
To deal with my own anticipatory angst, I began the process of interviewing almost eighty people – and the the result of my interviews is “Fifty On Fifty: The Milestone Conversations ”, which divides the fascinating “half-life” stories of fifty very different people, identified by pseudonyms and their actual professions, into three distinct sections: those still in their forties as they approach “the big day,” those who were about to celebrate their birthday within a few weeks or days or those who had just turned fifty, and those “on the other side,” men and women, from fifty–one to fifty-eight, who looked back at the event with impressions as diverse as their remarkably unique personalities and experiences.
While I interviewed each individual in precisely the same way, some resulted in a question and answer format and others unraveled themselves almost as if they were diary entries. Taken collectively, they are a deeply resonant baby boomer must-read, incredibly compelling self-told tales of life's impossibly inevitable joys and disappointments, reflections on everything from childhood and growing into one's own to fear of aging and death. Each strikes a single universal chord, as an unforgettable chronicle at mid-life revealing retrospectives on crises, surprises and necessary changes to triumphs and sorrows, achievements and losses and many, many musings on whether we control our own destinies or are all simply the handiwork of fate.
INTERVIEW1
Leslie
Doctor (Plastic Surgeon)
Boston , Massachusetts
1.7.60
• My favorite food? Ice Cream
• My favorite book? I could never narrow it down
• What do you like to do when you “can do anything in the world”?
Hang out with my daughter, ride my bike, listen to music, read
• What would you want to change about yourself?
I'm very fearful, my sense of humor is slipping away, I can't sleep
• What's your best personal tag line?
I feel I help others.
• What is your best physical attribute?
My eyes.
• Least favorite physical attribute?
My skin is blotchy and dark, alternately pale in other places on my face.
• If you could be anywhere, right now?
The beach in Cornwall , England …or Amagansett , NY
• What is the best thing you've ever done?
Had all my children & married my husband
• What is something you've been wrong about? I would not fear aging.
• Who is a favorite historical figure?
That era's Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson
• Your favorite movie is? I could never narrow it down.
“Lost in Translation” “The Way We Were” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” -- no, that's not it at all.
• What word or phrase do you misuse or overuse?
“Like”
• What three words describe you well?
Open, practical, dreamer
• Have you changed much since you were 18?
I'm so much less of an adventurer. I've lost my confidence.
• What disappoints you?
When I waste time.
• Do you have a particular taste in music? Not really. Jazz, I guess. Sometimes I sing a lot. Sometimes, music makes me melancholy. I'm seeing a pattern here.
• How do you feel about getting older?
I hate the idea of losing my physical beauty, that which I have!
• Do you still believe in love?
More than ever, I fight for it.
• What are your hopes and dreams for the future?
To start growing up and believing in myself.
