My friend, Laura, recently turned fifty.  She is the first of my close friends to reach this milestone.  After her, they fall like dominoes until it is my turn in August of 2010.  I am trying to wrap my head around this concept of reaching the half-century mark.  Do I think that we are old?  Are we finally REALLY over the hill?  The answer is “no.”  I think that we are wise, witty, young-at-heart women with lots of energy and  loads of life left to be lived.

Fifty has to be an improvement over forty!  One month into my 41st year, my husband died of a rare form of cancer.  Two months shy of my 43rd birthday, I was diagnosed with Leukemia.  Two days short of my 45th birthday, my son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.  It has been a challenging decade, with so many tests of my strength and my will to survive.

So I say to the impending 50 candles on my cake, BRING IT ON!  Fifty is going to be fantastic!  (That is my new mantra.)   And anyway, even though my driver’s license may say that I am forty-eight, I am still just thirty-something in my mind!