It has happened. That age that infantile Annie defined as an old person. I am 50. I can remember when I was a kid the celebrations at 40 amongst my parents and their friends. Yet, the age of 50 received no such fan fair. I think I may even be the age of my mom when I married Kevin, and no offense, but even at 25 my mom seemed older at this stage in my life. Now I’m there!
However in 25 years, so many changes, trends, and movements have occurred. We now have the anti ageism movement: WHO is in on it with their report from 2021, there’s an entire resource site dedicated to #antiageism called Old School, and here is a video that shows ageism occurring from the tender age of 5 to the wisdom of 85. Age is viewed so much differently now in 2022 compared to 1997 when Kevin and I got married and my parents were 50. An individual’s age is starting not to matter as much as it has in the past.
In fact some of my best friends from living abroad have rarely been the same age as me. I have my big-sister-friend Caron and my little-sister-friend Mary Kelly; with each of these friendships age has not mattered, and we are talking about solid friendships that not only have lasted years but have also endured global movement and meeting at destinations around the world. In fact, Caron and Mary Kelly have crossed paths–the life of expats is a small world. Then, there’s are oldest friend of 25 years: Rusty. He is Kevin and my first international friend. Rusty knows us from the young ripe age of 25 when we were just married five days before meeting him. He comes to visit us out at our Spirit Lake cabin with his Ted Lasso-like husband Ted. Rusty is our oldest couple friend and a very good one at that.
I speak of all these friendships and the different ages amongst them because age has never mattered. However, now here in Quito, I have really young friends. We call ourselves the CaCaws as we “cacaw” at one another whenever we see each other. At first I felt a bit insecure, like, why would they want to be friends with me? But Naomi, 20 years my junior, said it best: she enjoys and appreciates my life’s stories filled with tons of experiences. Naomi and Andres are the sweetest couple–so kind, generous, and fun. NayNay (her nickname) really listens as well as shares. Their friendships is like the three mentioned up above–they will be our friends forever.
Now, to end, I was being awfully silly regarding my birthday in February. Caron would have told me “to pull my panties up and be a big girl!” I just kind of wanted to avoid the day, pretend it wasn’t really happening, and slide the whole Feb 21st under the carpet. But then, at the last moment I realized my good friends here in Quito wanted to celebrate me. Why should I stop them? Luckily I switched gears and stood tall and proud in turning 50. They took me out for a wonderful evening filled with many surprises. No details were given so every single moment was a delight! It was a night to remember!! And it was these young girlfriends who care about me despite my age that made me realize that me being older than them does not really matter. Thank god for that!
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