Fifty and Other F-Words

by Margot Potter

  Seize joy. Share joy. Become happy.

  Watch the world shift.

  My new tattoo is a reminder, especially at those moments when I lose perspective, that I’m in charge of the journey, the destination, the perspective, and the message I share with others. I choose.

  I can, if I so choose, seize joy as often as possible and share that with those I meet along the way.

  Carpe gaudium.

  Bittersweet

  Bittersweet is one of my favorite words.

  It’s encapsulates the complexities of being so succinctly.

  Most joy has some element of sorrow. It could be the sorrow of what is missing, or the sorrow of what is yet to be, or the sorrow of wanting to share the experience with someone who is not present, or the sorrow of knowing that joy cannot be sustained.

  Being in the moment is so difficult because we carry so much into each moment. We carry the burden of what has passed, and we carry the anticipation of what’s to come. This makes being fully engaged and invested in what is happening right now challenging. The moment is all that is real, but moments pass before we can evaluate them. We assign meaning to them in retrospect. We alter them by examining them. Moments are not good or bad, they just are. We view moments through clouded lenses.

  As I get older, I find myself reflecting on time: I see the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years of moments past. I know that what lies behind me is greater than what lies ahead of me. My time is decreasing. This gives new moments a deeper resonance, but that’s perspective. The moments to come are no more or less important than the moments that have passed.

  I think more often these days about the importance of not wasting moments, yet I waste them anyway. I waste them when I focus on what I don’t have, what I have lost, and what I didn’t say or do. I waste them waiting for invitation, illumination, affirmation. This is frivolous. My life is a nanosecond in eternity. Most of what I find happy or sad or meaningful is meaningless in the face of infinity.

  I know this. Yet, here I am, breathing in, breathing out. Feeling all the feelings. Stretching toward infinity. Aching for meaning. Seeking the purity of the unfettered moment. Feeling the complexity of being alive.

  Bittersweet—both pleasant and painful.

  Yes, this.

  “Age Is Just a Number” and Other Stupid Things People Say about Getting Old

  • AGE IS JUST A NUMBER. Sometimes it’s a really big number. When the number gets too big, you can’t fit all the candles on your birthday cake without having a fire safety professional on call. This adds the perfect touch of danger to the occasion.

  • I’M OLDER AND I KNOW BETTER. Do you, though? I know a lot of older people. I can attest to the fact that many of them don’t know better, as evidenced by how many of them voted for Donald Trump.

  • SHE’S NO SPRING CHICKEN. I live on a farm. Spring chickens are overrated. Many of them don’t make it to summer. Winter chickens are survivors. I propose we create a new saying, “She’s a winter chicken—what a plucky broad!”

  • FIFTY IS THE NEW 30. No, it’s not. It’s 50. Brown is also not the new black. It’s brown.

  • YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG. See “Fifty is the new 30.”

  • YOU’RE TOO OLD TO WEAR THAT. I will wear what pleases me and you can mind your own damn business.

  • SEX, AT YOUR AGE? Is that an offer or an inquiry? Yes, to both. Thanks!

  • OLD PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY, RIGHT? Would you like my reply via tweet, text, snap, FB post, GIF, meme, email, instant message, or the classic no-tech middle finger?

  • ACT YOUR AGE. I never have before, why would I start now?

  • IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO LIVE YOUR DREAMS. Unless your dream is to be 15, in which case once you turn 16, you’re screwed.

  Everyday Magic

  This morning something magical happened. You may not think it was magical. On the surface, it’s perhaps even prosaic. Still, I’m a believer in everyday magic.

  When we moved this past summer, I misplaced my favorite necklace. After months of searching, I thought for sure it was gone for good. Then this morning, I opened the cabinet that I open about a hundred times a day and saw a red organza bag. I felt compelled to reach in, pick up the bag, and open it. Inside of the bag was a carved quartz cabochon we’ve had for many years, two big-faceted Swarovski sew-on stones, one tiny blue ceramic tile, a few unused metal stamping blanks . . . and my missing necklace.

  Why today? Why after months and months of digging through boxes, bags, bins, and drawers would this necklace finally show up? Was it always there? How did I miss it?

  Just a few days ago, I stood in the same room and said to my husband, “Why is it the things we don’t care about never seem to get lost? We stumble upon them over and over again in drawers and boxes and wonder why we still have them. Yet, the things that do matter disappear?”

  I used to joke that when you die, you get a box. Inside of the box are all the things you lost while you were alive. The box would be filled with keys, jewelry, single socks, tickets, and papers that seemed to have so much resonance when you were frantically looking for them . . . random things that would have no resonance at all once you were dead. This box would show you how absurd and pointless it was to have been so concerned about those things.

  As I let go of things that are weighing me down and holding me back, I make room for experiences that will lift me up and propel me forward. I feel lighter and more flexible. Still, there are a scant few things that I am not ready to release into the great cosmic dustbin. So, thank you, elf or fairy or sprite or whomever it was who put my favorite necklace back in my path this morning. I’m a believer in everyday magic.

  Wrinkle, Wrinkle, Little Scar

  Wrinkle, wrinkle, little scar,

  How I wonder why you are.

  Up above my furrowed brow,

  Framed around my smiling mouth.

  So many tales you have to tell,

  Of love, and loss, and life lived well.

  Wrinkle, Wrinkle, Little Scar,

  How I wonder that you are.

  The Unbearable Lightness of Letting Go

  As time passes, I find my focus shifting away from the physical and toward the ephemeral. I find myself less worried about my wrinkles and more concerned with my legacy. What footprint will I leave behind, if any? Either way, does it matter?

  If I do leave a footprint, I sure as hell hope it’s deeper than Instagram selfies or Pinterest-friendly DIY ideas.

  Perhaps this is what happens as our “beauty fades,” because it does, regardless of futile attempts to prevent it from fading. Unless you’re Christie Brinkley, in which case, I’ll have whatever the hell she’s having— Or not, because there is something powerful about losing the desire to please other people. It’s kind of delightful not having to be pretty anymore. It’s freeing. It’s transformative.

  It’s also a huge money saver. Magical skin creams are fucking expensive.

  I am also less interested in owning stuff. Don’t get me wrong: I still like stuff, but I’m less inclined to drag it home and put it on a shelf. I can appreciate it without needing to possess it. Even though I keep de-stashing, there is still so much stuff left. I worry about other people having to deal with the stuff I might leave behind. I want to be lighter, freer, less weighed down. I don’t want my legacy to be a hoard of glitter tubes or a bin full of shoes.

  I find petty grievances and small slights less worthy of my attention. I’m less inclined to care if people agree with me. My worldview is not defined by how many likes or shares it generates. My positions are more flexible and less dependent on their alignment with the status quo. I am less inclined to demand that others share my worldview, and more inclined to agree to disagree.

  Neither preaching to the choir nor arguing with fools are worthy endeavors. Better to join the choir in a joyful noise and leave the fools to argue among themselves.

  As time passes, I find that my sense of self-importance
diminishes. I realize that my life is just a tiny, almost imperceptible blip on the grand cosmic radar, and I’m learning to embrace that. I take myself less seriously. The need to be right fades in importance. I appreciate the tragi-comical absurdity of day-to-day life.

  The more I let go, the more space I make for love to move in and expand. I am lighter and lighter. My ego shrinks as my heart grows. The word I becomes less powerful than the word we. The importance of civic duty increases. The stewardship of the planet means more than the stewardship of stuff. The fight to protect kindness, joy, truth, freedom, and equality becomes far more urgent than the desire to protect myself.

  The unbearable lightness of letting go becomes more bearable with each release. As I inch toward the finish line, I hope to arrive free of attachment and filled with so much love that I expand into the great cosmic is-ness and lose my “self” in it forever.

  I did hedge my bets by writing this book, which may or may not make it past the first printing. Ah, the irony is rich.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my stalwart editor Jennifer Williams for encouraging me to pursue this book and holding my hand through the arduous process of editing my epic manuscript and finding a title we could all embrace.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Three notches too loud, five notches too sparkly, aging disgracefully, Margot Potter is either a Renaissance woman or a jill-of-all-trades. It depends on which day you ask her. When she’s not arranging words into sentences, she’s been known to make crafty magic, trip the boards, ham it up for the camera, and croon a happy tune. She has a shameless love of glitter and neon pom-poms. Her hobbies include rescuing dogs, collecting shoes, whipping up tasty cocktails, stalking oceanfront properties online, and thrift-store shopping. Margot has written seven books on jewelry making and design and an e-book on personal branding. She’s appeared on local and national TV as a design expert, and she spent 11 years as an on-air product expert at QVC.