Source: motivationproject/usedwithpermission

Okay, folks: I’m writing this one on behalf of all those new women new to the world of 55+, the ones who are roaming the malls, streets, restaurants, museums, gyms and beaches trying to look as if they know where they belong but who really haven’t a clue.

I have several friends who came over various self-appointed age-lines this year and are making themselves uneasy over the transition. Luckily, I have many more friends who laugh uproariously at the idea that turning 50, or 55, or 70 or any other age is anything other than emerging from late because they are, themselves, staring 95 straight in the kisser with a great, big smile.

These friends inspire me.

I’ll start, having just looked at my notebooks from 2007; that’s when I turned 50 and joined the Big Leagues.

I celebrated my actual birthday at one of Manhattan’s legendary restaurants. It’s now—somehow appropriately, given the nostalgic nature of my reminiscences—closed: Café des Artistes. Scandalously decorated by paintings by renowned artist Howard Chandler Christy of nearly naked wood nymphs, the much-feted place had been hip since it opened in 1917. I knew I wanted to celebrate in a place at least a little bit older than any of my guests, so it was perfect.

We had fourteen for drinks and dinner and I’d known for at least fifteen years, and most of them for thirty. This was no time for new-comers. For gifts, I asked people to record for me whatever they considered to be age-appropriate CDs (even these now seem old-fashioned but I for one still listen to them).

There was a music system in the small private room where we dined so that we could listen to the music while we ate, and the songs were perfect. They included everything from “Got A Lot of Livin’ To Do” from “Bye-Bye Birdie,” to “I’m Not Dead Yet” from “Spamalot” and “When You’ve Got It, Flaunt It” from “The Producers” to Elaine Strich’s “I’m Still Here” (she still was, then, too).

We laughed, we talked, we drank (or at least many of us did) and I felt ushered into the next part of my life with a light heart. No black balloons, no “jokes” about getting old, no self-pity disguised as playfulness: this was acknowledgement of a threshold crossed, plain and simple, without wistfulness or whining.

It was a much better celebration than the one I had when I was 21. When I turned 21, a boyfriend took me to see the movie “Zulu Dawn,” which showed the slaughter of an indigenous people by their white male overseers; I don’t remember a single woman in the cast but what I do remember is being miserable throughout the entire evening. He didn’t even give me card and I didn’t dare complain because I was still trying to be a “good girl” and not admit that I had my any opinions, wishes or hopes of my own. I had no money, no sense of where I was really heading in life and very little .

Getting older is way better than staying young.

What I wish I could tell that young woman is the following:

1. Don’t worry—it won’t be like this forever. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Be for the card table under the single light fixture. That’s where you’ll write your books.

2. Take responsibility for yourself even when it seems easier to rely on somebody else. Stop worrying about what will happen in ten years because life in ten years won’t be anything like what you’re imaging now.

3. Introduce yourself to everybody. Don’t hide. Make eye-contact, smile, and make conversation even with the people who intimidate you. Some of them will become your greatest allies and best friends.

4. You’ll think you should have taken other jobs, gone other places, met other people and lived other lives. You will; life isn’t over yet.

5. When you tell yourself that your best days are behind are, you pretty much guarantee that they are. Remind yourself that the best of life is yet to come.

Now that I think about it, this sounds like good advice at any age…