TheBanyanTree: fifty years in the rearview

[Julie Anna Teague]

I am fifty today.  I celebrated with some friends and family Saturday 
night at a warm, fun local restuarant with good food and wine. I've 
done a lot of crazy, dangerous, and sometimes stupid things in my life. 
  I have survived things that have killed people.  So waking up this 
morning having made it through a half century of living feels like no 
small miracle. I'm happy and healthy and whole and loved.  What more 
could a person ask for?  My mom gave me a card with pictures of myself 
at about 2 and 3 years old. Very funny to see my small baby-fat self in 
my little blue dress and my bangs trimmed so short they were nearly to 
my hairline. My mother claims that most likely I would not sit still, 
forcing her to keep evening them up until they were half an inch long.  
I would buy this story or really any other explanation.  I have always 
had a hard time sitting still and I hated it when she had to comb my 
hair.  I have nipped my own son in the ear with sharp scissors trimming 
his hair at 2 years old.  And then there was the time he gave himself a 
haircut.  These things happen. But there I was 48 years later with my 
big smile and my funny bangs and my fat little cheeks, same gap in my 
two front teeth that I have to this day.

I want to squeeze Little Julie's chubby dimpled knees and tell her that 
although life will be a real bitch some years, everything will be ok 
when you are fifty. Really. You will find yourself healthy and whole 
and loved, and you will recognize that fact and you will be filled with 
gratitude.  You will be happy. Your mother, despite the ups and downs 
in your relationship, will be your biggest supporter and friend. It 
will all work out once you both grow up. She will write you a letter on 
your fiftieth birthday that will make you cry tears of joy.

And sweetheart, you will have two sons who will alternately reduce you 
to a blubbering wreck and lift you to the highest heights of love. They 
will define your life. They will help you define yourself and 
everything that is important to you. You will have a life partner who 
loves you for yourself, and loves you deeply. At long last. I won't go 
into the gorey details--it's not all pretty-- but trust, just trust.

Life will be adventurous, heartbreaking, lovely, joyful, hard, 
beautiful, poignant, and always always interesting. Everything will 
come out ok at fifty. So keep smiling, Little Julie.  And carry on.

Julie