Kidney chi and jelly

This blog was born on a massage table. It was born whilst a masseuse held my foot and told me she was checking my 'kidney-chi'. Huh? "Your kidney chi". She shiatsus a spot on my right instep and it hurts like hell: "because women your age start to lose their fire and I want to see how you are doing".

What? Then it dawns - oh my god - she's talking about menopause! She thinks I'm old enough enough for the menopause. I'm only 48 for God's sake. Priya senses my shock - she looks down at me and smiles: "you're OK - you've got masses of fire left...." Good to know - but it got me thinking..

The fact that I am fast approaching fifty had become a new persona for me. My younger friends love to introduce me: "this is my friend gg, can you believe she's almost 50!"    Responses vary – "wow you don’t look it",  "you could never tell",  "blimey - you look nothing like my mom".   And once, memorably;  "Lishen, the reashon I’ve been talking with you so much ish I love to fuck older women".   This from a 250 pound, 32 year old man, who could barely stand for the number of vodka tonics he’d been throwing down his neck all evening.   

"Thanks for the kind offer, but I'll pass."  

"Oh come onnn, you're almosht fifty."  

The web is full of sites aimed at me: arguments for and against HRT, statistics on the difficulty of finding a man after 50, tips for dealing with mid-life depression, cosmetic surgery hints.  Forum after forum bemoan this dark-age which seems to be heralded by a newly dry vagina. I mean, when on EARTH did that become an appropriate conversation starter? And hello ... anyone familiar with the letters K and Y?  

I still wear 7forallmankind jeans and t-strings. I go to yoga classes and have fashionable bikini waxes. I read fashion magazines, watch new movies, travel, love art and a great cocktail, adore 30Rock and buy lots of new music. I'm not ready for a dry anything at all.

And, I don't believe that '50 is the new 40' nonsense. What the hell does it mean anyway? I'm certainly not about to start doing things I didn't do when I was 40. I'm still embarrassed about some of the things I did do. 50 is not 40. Fifty is fifty and anything else is an ill-advised leotard,

So - my plan is to make sure that '50 is the new 50'. I am going to do that by really participating in my life. For the next 15 months (at least) I am going to go where I am invited, try new tastes and sounds and colours and looks, write up my experiences - and generally put together a "write of passage" into my next half century. I have no idea what that will involve ... but I am going to find out.