Today I’m fourty-nine! I’ve been practicing how to say “I’m fifty” for three years now, and still on it. It still doesn’t fit. Maybe next year when it happens I’ll expect it to fit like what my childhood perception of fifty was. Old enough.

Back then I was told to act my age. Ten. So I did and now I just can’t seem to get a poly-grip on what “old” should be. Stimulus still enters my brain, new people keep showing up in my life, and I’m still taking chances. In fact I got carded just last week and I don’t even have a tattoo!

I will keep on practicing how to say “I’m fifty”. Next year, if the day is like today I’ll do up a ten – year – old’s birthday party in my garage like mom used to with hot dogs and cake, a balloon bunch hanging from the beams over card tables set with paper covers and tacky-hats.

Maybe I’ll even treat myself and get a tattoo… after all I will be old enough, I guess.