My fiftieth birthday was on October 5. It’s hard to believe I’m 50! I saw this tongue in cheek picture above about turning 50 and it made me smile.

What does turning 50 mean to me? In my forties I kept thinking about how much farther other people had come than me. Now I’m thinking about getting involved in the Wall Street protests happening in New York. There are groups forming in all different cities across the country and there is one here in Asheville. (http://occupyasheville.org/) I’m not too sure about the movement but I want to check it out. There is a General Assembly that meets every night at 7 pm downtown and I plan to go tonight.

I’ve been visiting the facebook page and it looks like several interesting things are happening. The movement consists of a whole lot of young people and I had a discussion with several others about age on that page. They all said they would never go back to being younger again. As I sit here now, I must agree with them. I’ve gained a lot of wisdom and I wouldn’t want to give any of that back. I might be all grown up now but I’ll never stop growing and changing.

I’ve been feeling a little down about being a TBI survivor so I looked at the essay Welcome to Holland again. (see 2/9/11) I especially like “But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they’re bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go…..’ But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.”

Since I do not work, I’ve had time to check out the facebook page for this Wall Street thing. There is a lot of material there and I’m glad I had a chance to look at it. I also had time to bake bread today. I do love putting my hands in the dough and then tasting it when it’s all baked. I never would have done this if I had gone to Italy.

If you are a brain injury survivor, how old are you? Do you like being here in Holland instead of Italy? See top right for commenting instructions or email me directly at