On a milestone birthday, my older brother announced: “I’m old; I don’t care anymore.” It was his way of declaring freedom to say whatever he wanted without filter.

He was 30.

As I hit a different milestone, I find myself thinking similarly. Not that I feel old. I feel way more like 30 than I do my 50 years. Thanks to good genes, my hair color and eyesight are still unassisted. Though I do think there is a special place in hell for the restaurants that use smaller than 10 point gray type on golden-colored menus and have dim lighting. That’s not elegant or sophisticated. It’s just mean. And you are practically forcing me to frequent places with pictures on their menus. I mean IHOP’s Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity pancakes need no words.

And it’s not that at this age, I don’t care. I do care. About big things. Like my kids and what their future looks like. And leaving people, situations and the planet in better shape than when I found them. And bacon. Not necessarily in that order.

But at this age, I find there are fewer little things I care about, like:

• Being unfriended on social media. I’m comfortable enough in the virtual, not real and actually largely fake online world, that if someone does not want to be my “friend” or date me or follow me, I’m ok with it. I just pretend that they are like a Tamagotchi that died.
• Intolerant people. If you start a sentence with “Not to be (mean, racist, a homophobe, lactose intolerant),” you already are. And I’ve probably already mentally unfriended you. For reals. Except for the lactose intolerant. Of whom I am very…tolerant.
• The Kardashians, The Bachelor/Bachelorette or any of the ironically named Real Housewives. I must keep up with the aforementioned to carry on pop culture conversations with my children. And my work colleagues. But I refuse to follow any of them on Twitter. I am super badass like that.

Halfway there

My middle daughter likes to greet people who are turning 50 by saying, “Halfway there!” Assuming of course everyone lives to 100, which is somewhat impractical.

I know too many who tragically never made it to this age. And others who died long before their bodies gave out. We all know the zombies of which I speak. I like the concept though….halfway there. What’s ahead? How best to build on where you’ve been? Where’s the next rest stop? Are we there yet?

I got in a spirited debate once with a client I was traveling with years ago. About whether success was a journey or a destination. He argued destination…as though you arrived at success as the culmination point. I argued success was a journey…one you never actually arrived at. Sort of like trying to check out of the Hotel California. To be fair, I was young, and my argument was completely based on a Successories poster I had seen at the mall.

With Olivia…the originator of the Halfway There! welcome to 50 greeting.

Even sans cliched motivational poster talking point, I do think it’s a journey–success, life, storing bad 80s hairband lyrics in your brain. Which is good. Because I just saw that the world’s oldest person this week celebrated her 116^th birthday. I’m not even halfway there.