Taylor is engaged!
My initial reaction was with the exclamation point (actually,
several of them). We have come to know and love Taylor’s girlfriend over the
last 10 months and are so excited for her to join our family. They were both
smiling ear-to-ear when they came back from what will now be known as their
“engagement tour” of the Garden of the Gods.
Taylor is engaged.
After about 30 minutes of rejoicing, all of a sudden I
understood what the sentence as a statement meant--I am old enough to have a
son get married. Wow. It’s like that first moment when as a teenager I fully
understood that I was going to die one day. Having my first child on the
threshold of marriage has spotlighted (with all the intensity and glare of an
interrogation) what the past 20 years of hair dye has tried to hide--I am
getting older.
I will also turn 50 this year. Normally I don’t start
thinking about my age until the beginning of August, just a few weeks before my
birthday, but now I seem to have a sort of morbid fixation on the number 50 in
the back of my mind at all times. That fixation shows up in the following
thoughts:
“I need to finish cleaning out my closets and get rid of
stuff I don’t need anymore (because I turn 50 this year).”
“I should make myself a Christmas quilt this summer (before I
turn 50).”
“I need to lose 10 pounds before the wedding (because I turn
50 right after that).”
“I should enjoy running while I can (because I turn 50 this
year).”
I also find an increased amount of stress to make my activities matter because I have this over-exaggerated sense of impending doom. You know, that my days are numbered from here on out. Logically I know it’s just paranoia, that life really is just beginning, but for the moment I feel like I’m being pursued by a shadowy number 50.
Last night I had a dream about being on a snow-covered road
with snow piled high along the sides. As I looked closer, I saw lots of red
rocks showing through here and there in the snow and realized this road was
familiar, like the many national parks in Utah that we’ve been to, and yet
unfamiliar at the same time. And then I began to notice holes in the snow along
the roadsides that showed a terrifying drop below and I realized that what I
had thought was a safe valley road was actually a precipice road along the top
of a vast rock formation. Upon waking, I thanked my subconscious for terrifying
me once again and illustrating my fears for me. Now that I know what those
fears are, I can hopefully face them with more clarity and understanding.
Truly I understand that 50 won’t be so bad. Most of my
favorite people (my parents, my siblings, many of my friends) have turned 50
without any real drama and have shown me how to accept and embrace the march of
time, so I will do my best to emulate them. And I will keep to the road and
hope for some spectacular views along the way.
