Fifty And Other "F" Words...by Angie Terry

Fine!!!! Ok I turned Fifty this last year.  It seems just like yesterday that my own Mother turned Fifty and it has been twenty years since she celebrated her Fiftieth birthday.

At that time in her life she was writing for the Shelley Pioneer newspaper and her column was called “Memoirs of the Domestic Goddess.” One of my favorite articles she wrote was entitled, “Fifty and other F words.” I remember reading and laughing my guts out and also couldn’t believe my Mother wrote a article filled with F words. In that article she underlined every F word and my first thought was, “Wow I couldn’t believe my mom is going to swear in writing for the entire world to see.” I was actually excited to see if my God fearing, always teaching her children to live like Jesus Christ, striving for perfection Mother was going to use the “Queen Mother Of All Dirty Words…the ‘F,’ dash, dash dash word.” That is a line from the movie Christmas Story that my family has always loved to use.

I then realized that the F words were Fine, Fabulous, Forever etc…How incredibly smart I thought she was to not use profanity as she continued to talk about the challenges of life and being Fifty.  Towards the end of the article, I remember she was talking about when she would die and she knew her children would just incase her in a glass coffee table and she for eternity would be looking through the glass at the ring marks from the glasses we had set on the table…never to be cleaned.

This funny article never left my mind and last year a few months before my big 5-0 hit, I decided that I wanted to do a half marathon walk and called it the “Fifty and other F words walk.”  I invited many friends to join me and it was held on the fabulous Las Vegas strip. I had many takers at first and one by one for one reason or another they couldn’t make it except two of my girl friends and my boy friend Scott. I worked out hard for the next few months to get in shape for the big walk. I had red shirts made for us with big white letters on the front that read, “FIFTY” and below that were the other F words… “FANCY, FIERY, FLAWLESS and FLIRTATIONS.” On the back of the shirt it read “THE FABULOUS 50 WALK AND OTHER F WORDS, LAS VEGAS March 7, 2013.”

The day of walk had arrived. I got a text early in the morning from my fiends who came with to support me. The text read something like this…“We are all ready for the walk. We have our shirts on and are so excited. We are going to get a little something to eat and since we are in Vegas we will be waiting for you at Bugsy’s Bar playing video poker.

So being all pumped up for this half marathon, Scott and I head to Bugsy’s Bar to meet up with my friends to start our walk.  Surprisingly the “little something” they ate that morning was a few Bloody Marys.  My friends tried to walk with me that morning, which I truly appreciate, but the only walking they did was right back to their room to “sleep it off.”  So in light of the recent event, Scott and I continued to do the half marathon together and by ourselves.  I will always be thankful he was there and walked with me. He even did it with his back hurting just so I wouldn’t be alone. We walked the strip and a few side streets. We even got a picture with the Coca-Cola bear towards the end of our walk. I will never forget the feeling I had when we finished. I said to myself, “I did it” and “I did it without too much pain and feel pretty darn fabulous.”   

After the excitement of that day has faded into a great memory and I have continued into my Fiftieth year, I have come to realize several things.

…#1 LIFE IS SHORT! 

The “HELLOS”…I had to say “hello” to drier skin than I have ever had. “Hello” to aches and pains I didn’t even know existed. “Hello” to every bathroom everywhere I go. Say “hello” to the night many times because it is impossible to sleep through an entire night without waking up.

The “GOODBYES” …I had to say “goodbye” to no wrinkles on my face. “Goodbye” to not having to go to the bathroom at least twice during the night.  “Goodbye” to being a young mother with my daughter at home. And the hardest “Goodbye” in my life at this point was the one I had to bid to the most Fabulous, Funny, Family oriented, Forever Mother.

It is strange the feeling we go through in life but all in all 50 is really not so bad. …there is lots of Love, Laughter and lots of “F” WORDS!