Just another year

"Sometime around the age of 50 you realize something very important...and then poof! It's gone and you can't remember what the heck you were just thinking of."

I will reach another milestone on Sunday. I will turn 52. I don't feel one bit older but I do know that as I look in the mirror today, I look a lot younger than I did yesterday - especially since I did finally visit Mel - my beautician magician - who washed that gray right out of my hair for another couple months.

I am a little more forgetful, and the quote from a birthday card I received from a friend (above) says it. My eyesight isn't as good as it once was (but is manageable with $3 cheater glasses) and I still have great hearing (my kids will never get away with anything without me knowing it.)

I am sure, like every year in the past and every year in the future, my kids will again quiz me on which dinosaur I had as a pet when I was young. Again, I will humor them (it was a brontosaurus. He often used his long, narrow tail to hit any other dinosaurs that came to attack me).

I plan to spend my birthday on the Wayne State College campus with daughter Marissa - it was her idea I make the trip there to see her since she had just been home. A weekend away? Couldn't pass that up.

She suggested we have cake for breakfast - a tradition we have had at our house for many years to let the birthday girl or boy know we are thinking of them all day - not only at night when their birthday is nearly over. Except, she is a college student - who do you suppose is going to provide the cake?!

I might have to bring silly sunglasses and hats to take pictures with; another tradition. Daughter Meghan mentioned just the other night she was looking at old pictures and came across birthday pics of her and her siblings. Each year I made them pose for a "silly" picture. "There must be something wrong with us," she said to me. "No one else does that."

My husband will remain 51 - until April 29 - and of course he will not let me forget that I am older than him. (He appears older than me, however, because he doesn't wash his gray out!)

I've lived long enough to know a sense of humor is more valuable than ever. So as I continue to work toward the second 50 years of my life, I will continue to laugh, and try to make people around me laugh.