Thoughts on Turning Fifty

Yesterday, David and I celebrated my 50th birthday, and I have to say it was my favorite one yet! Thank you to everyone who sent texts, emails, cards, calls and more. I don’t know why, but I have never been so excited to turn a year older.

Aging is such a paradox for me, because I look way younger than my years, but I have always felt ancient. I’ve communicated with the dead since my best friend Grandpa Frank died when I was three. I then became best friends with his widow, my Grandma Van. Wherever I live, I tend to have at least one dear friend in her eighties. I have many clients in their seventies who send me “Mother’s Day” greetings, and my own mom often introduces me as “the best mom” she could ever have.

I recall loads of past lives going back to prehistoric times, and I experience these memories as one, long, continuous life. I remember dying in different ways, have previewed and empathed many people’s deaths at the time they died, only to learn later that this was not my imagination. I’ve had way more near death experiences (NDE’s) than most people. I always get sent back here, but I feel SO OLD most of the time. Not old, decrepit–old like a tree that bears witness to the rise and fall of empires. That sounds dramatic, but it’s how I experience “life” on a daily basis.

Throw in precognitive dreams and visions, and I’m simultaneously ancient and sometimes a decade ahead of the calendar. Clocks on my nightstand don’t work. They always run way fast, even if we reset them to the proper time.

Added to this mix is my May 19, 1998 car accident, which served as a not-so-subtle end of an era. This occurred three days before I turned twenty-five. I received a great big traumatic brain injury for that birthday, and I became totally disabled like an old person. Memory problems, balance issues, constantly in the doctor’s office, couldn’t drive anymore, lost my independence, retired from my career … and I have pretty much reverse aged since then. Now I regularly shock people who think I’m in my twenties, thirties, or–if they kind of know that’s impossible–then people like my shocked nephew think I’m forty-two.

David and I tend to celebrate “birthday month,” since his birthday’s May 7th. We took a beautiful three-day weekend up in Traverse City area for his, and for mine we did little day trips and outings around Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. David took me to the farmers market and various plant stores, and I got the rest of the garden planted up this weekend. We tried some amazing (and new to us) vegan food, and yesterday we spent the day in Ann Arbor. David arranged it all, hitting a perfect balance of bookstores, crystal shop, and a French cafe, followed by Mother Nature.

We took a lovely walk–almost a hike–in Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, followed by a delicious meal at the vegetarian restaurant, Seva. I’ll share a few photos from our day, since David documented it for Crazy Plant Lady, who is now–finally–“in her fifties.”

They have a huge collection of peonies at the botanical garden!

From the botanical garden, we moved onto diverse trails of the arboretum. My knee has recovered enough to hike almost three miles, including lots of hills and steps.

As usual, we saw a lot of owls, including this one:

My mom’s happy birthday text revealed that she had heard an owl hoot when she awoke yesterday. You also might have noticed (in the first photo) this gorgeous owl and moonstone pendant birthday gift from my sweet faery “twin” Tania Marie. She has a matching one with rabbits!

We saw more owls at Seva but didn’t document those since we were busy enjoying our meal. Presence is important, even for people as temporally challenged as I am. Take time to stop and smell the rhododendrons: