Yesterday I turned 50

Yesterday I turned 50.

I don’t feel old exactly, I feel initiated. I’ve crossed an invisible threshold staffed with my elders and ancestors. They’ve been expecting me. There’s a Barka Lounger with my name on it, a half-cup of Earl Gray next to a landline with a pile of Post-it notes, waiting to be doodled on.

“It takes a long time to become young.” – Pablo Picasso

It was easy for me to think 50 was the finish line. The age you slow down, settle in, start repeating stories (I already repeat stories). But what’s real for me right now is this: I’ve never felt more curious, more vulnerable, more irreverent… irrelevant?  No. No, irreverent.

Like a freshman in the school of the seasoned, bumbling around with paint-stained hands and too many brushes, I’m ready to ask some real questions.

I finished this painting in about 45 minutes, but it’s taking me all of my life to be brave enough to do something like that.

Maybe that’s the magic of midlife: you stop auditioning and start creating. Not to impress. Not to prove. But to be. The way a tree keeps growing rings, even after its branches have weathered a thousand storms. The way paint clings differently to canvas when my hand is sure, not of perfection, but of presence.

Art at this stage feels less like ambition and more like devotion. I don’t need it to change the world. I need it to change me. I want to learn to be comfortable in the unknown. I can be awkward without apology, and bold and soft at the same time.

So here’s to being a freshman again. To taking risks with who I am as an artist. To learning to see, again and again. To the decades ahead, where mastery isn’t about control, but surrender.

And if you’re standing at your own threshold, wondering if it’s too late, I can promise you this:

It isn’t. It’s never too late to start again as yourself.

What are you ready to begin, no matter your age?

Where are you surprising yourself?

Is it time to break your own rules?