A life half full or half empty

I just checked out a book from the library about what to do with the second half of your life.  I got it out half heartedly thinking that I would just merely browse through it just in case in time maybe, just perhaps, I might need to read up on such a topic.  Not that it pertains to me.  No siree bub.  Cause I am only slightly forty...ish.   Okay so I am 42. This age is not to be confused with 35 or even 39.  Dammit...I can't even say that I just turned 40...which is really so close to being in your 30's.  A little stretch of the imagination and I am thirty something. 

So the jig is up.  I have to accept the fact that I am entering (see the woman grasping at the door frame)....*GASP*....middle age. There I said it.  I am middle aged.  And half of my life as I know it, is permanently over.

Now what?

I am tending to look at all the literature and movies and even television programs differently now.  Remember the show Thirty Something?  When that show was on I was in my twenties.  I could delight in the fact that I was not yet thirty and I did not have to relate to the characters facing thirty something issues.  Now I see that one of the female stars of that show is now on a show called Brothers and Sisters.  What has happened?  In tv land...someone has grown old!  Visibly old.  Sally Field is on this show too as a widow.  The flying nun is old!  The hot babe from Smokey and the Bandit is now old.  I am not sure if I like this.  Doesn't it seem that people are entering this ethereal realm at lightening speed?  And...you know what?  We are next. 

I know what you are thinking.

Not another whiney diatribe about the shock of finding one is entering the stage of middle life.  Well it is.  And it is new to me because....well...it is me.  I am entering the unknown.   I have never been this old before. Will I begin to want lots of cats, begin knitting, and suddenly want to watch old Lawrence Welk shows?  Will I start to like bingo?  Not that there is anything wrong with any of this.  Please don't throw things at me.  Will construction workers no longer whistle?  Will I even be able to hear them whistle?  Will I need to buy a clapper???

Now that I am clearly in the second half of my life should I begin to get serious?  Should I stop dancing naked to the radio songs after a long shower?  Should I stop watching the Simpsons and watch more news?  Should I stop playing the kid's video games when they are not around?  My god do I have to stop believing in Santa Claus and just grow up already?

So many questions.  Maybe none of them really need answering.  Perhaps the best course is to just keep being me.  I have more candles on my birthday cake but does this mean I have to morph into something or someone else?  My gut tells me no. 

My life may be half way over but there is a lot left to live.  Pour some more life into my glass.  Fill it up in fact.  I choose to enjoy it while I still have a damn glass to fill.

Now blow me some bubbles...it is time for Lawrence Welk with the lovely lemon sisters.