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| 1975 - with mom and big sister Chris |
Being born on the 363rd day of the year essentially messes with your relationship to your birth year. Yeah, I was pretty much born in 1975. Either way, I am turning 50 this year — technically the butt-end of 2024, but really, let’s just round up and say I’m turning 50 in 2025.
I once asked my mom if she was disappointed I wasn’t a New Year’s baby, and she replied that on the contrary, her and my dad were quite pleased I was born in 1974, as they were able to claim me as a tax deduction. Cue the Replacements’ Bastards of Young — “income tax deduction, one hell of a function.” My parents always had a rather practical northern sensibility.
So, as the end of 2024 and my 50th birthday coincide, I find myself staring down the barrel of ultimate life reflection. Not only do I have the typical annual New Year’s resolution type shit, I’ve got the holy shit I’m a half-century-year-old type shit. Now that’s a lot of shit! A half-century worth of shit. Bear with me as I venture all over the recesses of my brain and embark on an adventure reflecting on the past, worrying about the future, avoiding the presence and waxing poetic on whatever happens to pop into my head. Much like life, this may be a rollercoaster of an essay.
When I turned 40 I recall thinking, “This is great, I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks. I am finally comfortable in my own skin. This is just so great!” I started to think of the decade as the, “zero fucks to give 40’s.” Despite this initial mindset, as time went on, I began to see this decade in less of a positive and life affirming light. Now as my 40’s come to an end, it feels a lot more like, “your 40’s — when everybody gets cancer or gets a divorce.” Which I suppose is a bit on the dark side, but has a bit of truth to it.
I was 40-years-old when my youngest son William was born and nearly killed me in September 2015. Despite his murderous intent, through the years I have somehow learned to love him. In all seriousness though, it was a complicated pregnancy and birth involving something called HELLP syndrome and I was lucky enough to receive very good medical care. Happy to say as I approach 50, the little guy who almost killed me is a very fun nine-year-old with endless energy and an ever impressive vocabulary.
Onward to 2016, and what sticks out in my mind was going to vote for the first woman president, with one-year-old William in tow. Of course, we all know how that turned out! I ended 2016 by slipping on some ice while visiting my parents and breaking my leg. The injury resulted in surgery on my 42nd birthday at the same rural hospital where I was born and I managed to convince myself I was going to die in a “circle of life” kind of way. Spoiler alert, as you may have guessed while reading this essay about turning 50, I survived said surgery. A distinct memory as 2017 began was being stuck on my living room couch, broken leg and all, watching the Trump inauguration while sobbing. And like that, the American carnage began.
Of course there’s no need to recap the whole past decade. We all remember the major highs and lows — including of course that little pandemic that began in March 2020. Considering the stress of living through a pandemic, maybe this essay should be about turning 75 instead of 50, as I’m fairly sure the experience accelerated my aging. I was a stay-at-home parent at the time and got to wade through the joys of homeschooling two kids at a time of very high anxiety. I became addicted to irreverent cross-stitching, doom scrolling and trying to figure out the best way to see the people I loved while keeping up with the social distancing. High points through it all included the development and distribution of vaccines and the election of Biden in 2020, signaling the return to some normalcy.
In 2023, at 48, I re-entered the workforce landing a unicorn of a photography job, working for the Minnesota legislature. After ten years at home with the kids, this was a huge and exciting change for me. As I now head into my third legislative session, I’m grateful this opportunity came along. Although it’s not the perfect job — what is – it has changed my perspective on so many things. Mostly, my own self-worth and the enjoyment of being out there in the world again. And getting paid well for making photographs is pretty damn cool, too!
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| Post interview photo - got the job! |
This past May my father passed away following a battle with dementia. He had been living in a care facility for eight-months before he died and it was not unexpected as his health had been steadily declining. Although his passing has been difficult to process — and I’m still in the midst of processing it —I know when he passed he wasn’t really living. He was a shell of his former self, not able to communicate anymore, which if you knew my father, is hard to imagine. I’ll always be comforted with the knowledge that he spent the last thirty years of his life living in the home he loved on Lake Superior. Even as his dementia worsened, he’d walk around and wax poetic about how lucky he was to live on the big lake and to be blessed with so much in his life. I’m very grateful for the time we had together and try to reflect upon the good memories and telling my kids stories about Grandpa Bob. Introducing my boys to the joys of foosball has been therapeutic.
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| Grandpa Bob and William |
As we head into 2025 and the chaos that is certain to come with another ride on the Trump merry-go-round, I’d like to focus on the things I can control. This isn’t easy for me, as, like most people, I tend to worry about the many, many things we have no real control over. I’ve mostly been avoiding the national news since the election, as it tends to break my heart, but I know I can’t hide from it forever. Complete avoidance is a cop out and I have a responsibility as an adult citizen of this here country to keep up with the major stories, no matter how disturbing they may be.
As I embark on 50, I find myself both looking back at the last 20 years and looking forward, wondering what the next 20 years may have in store — fingers crossed I make it to 70. I’m trying not to get bogged down on past regrets, although we can certainly learn from our regrets. Aside from the three years of my life spent commuting to Rochester, the only other regret worth mentioning and reflecting upon concerns relationships and time. As we age, it’s natural to gain a new perspective on time and how truly precious it is. The way we spend our limited time on this planet becomes much more relevant. I was recently reminded of the Iron & Wine album titled “Our Endless Numbered Days.” This phrase seems like such an accurate and poignant description of the nature of our time on this planet. Most days it feels endless until we’re suddenly reminded, in so many ways, that our days here are literally numbered. As I’m writing this, I am at number 18,261 of my life.
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| Bus stop mama! |
Whether it’s catching a look at myself in the mirror, standing next to my 14-year-old son who is now at least two inches taller than me, or finding out that my favorite album just turned 30-years-old, I’m constantly bombarded by reminders of how fast everything is going. I often find myself wishing I could slow time down. Obviously, that’s impossible. Even Cher couldn’t turn back time. But I suppose the best next alternative is to do our best to enjoy every moment we have together and live in the present. Spend time with those you truly love and enjoy. Cut back on all the bullshit, as there’s really no time for all the bullshit! Take every opportunity to do the things you like to do, be with the ones you like to be with. And put your damn phone down. I know I need to do this, I know! Honestly, if I could press a magic button that would get rid of the Internet forever, I would do it. Would I have a lot of enemies for doing it? Yeah, probably. But humanity would thank me in the long run.
And this leads me to relationships. My 50-years have taught me that relationships are the most important part of our journey through this thing called life. As Prince pointed out, “take a look around, at least you have friends.” Who would we be without the people in our lives, our friends and our family?
Like all things of value, relationships take a lot of work and cultivation. My goal as we head into 2025 and as I head into my 50th year on this planet, is to put more work into my relationships. I want to take time to reach out to friends and family whom — for whatever reason — I’ve lost touch with or have experienced a relationship stressor. Moving forward, repairing and strengthening relationships is paramount to me and really doesn’t take much more than finding the time to reach out and figuring out ways to communicate better and more often in an age where there are countless ways to do so. I’d like to put an effort into seeing people in person, too, as I think it’s important to get real life facetime with the people you love. This of course can get expensive, but it truly is money well spent.
As for my relationships with my immediate-right -here-in-this-house family, I’d like to focus on the quality of the time we spend together. To me, this means less screen time — unless we’re sitting down together to watch a movie and eat popcorn — and more activity time. I’m not quite sure what these activities will be, but I’m sure we can put our heads together and come up with something. We live in a vibrant city with so many things to explore and experience. So thank you to all of you who have been a part of my life. Know you are appreciated and loved by this over the hill woman in Minneapolis. And thank you for reading this terribly long and meandering essay.
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| Last photo in my 40's |
