The Year I Turned 50
Me on my actual 50th birthday last July, sick with COVID but in great spirits.
I turned 50 last July. The day itself didn't go down as I was planning—thanks, stupid COVID—but the rest of the year has been spent celebrating with six of my closest friends who also turned 50 this year. We’ve dubbed the text chain that we’ve been communicating on since the pandemic, “Club 1973.”
I have been blessed with the most amazing friendships, some of which date back to when we were in second grade. Another friend came into the mix in high school. And then the seventh and most recent friend in the group is someone I met in college while studying abroad in Greece. After we graduated college she then became a roommate with me and one of the original quad of friends, and then eventually met all the others and seamlessly got brought into our fold.
Club 1973 in Las Vegas last summer.
I've known these women for a majority of my 50 years, and some of them almost my entire life. Our bonds are deeper than sisterhood, which is hard for me to say since I have two actual sisters. But I’ve always thought that the difference between friends and siblings is that you pick your friends.
I LOVE my two sisters, but we’re very different from each other. My dad has even compared us to three cats in a bag. As we get older, and now that our mother is no longer with us, we’ve gotten closer and don’t fight as much. I now consider them my closest friends.
But the women of Club 1973 are my ride or dies. Before the 50th year celebrations I was lucky if I got to see them a few times a year—and this goes for the ones who live in the same city as me. But whenever I’d get together with any of them it was as if no time had passed since we last saw each other. We’d just pick up like no time apart had transpired.
A photo of me with some members of Club 1973 on my 30th birthday—20 years ago!
Thinking about it, I’ve been roommates with four of the six women back in our single days. We’ve survived old boyfriends, career switches, marriage, family, and now, ahem, getting older. Some of us are in menopause, some still get their periods like clockwork. Some have kids who are in college, and some of us still have middle schoolers. Some travel the world at a frequent clip, some have parents who have died or are experiencing dementia.
Life is real, yo. But each of these women has approached every challenge with grace and strength, and every triumph with pride and confidence. We are all at this phase of our lives when we’ve lived and learned and just don’t get hung up on the small stuff like we would have when we were in our 20s or 30s.
As our 50th birthday year approached, we started talking about how to celebrate. Plans came together kind of here and there, and kicked off with a trip to Las Vegas to see Ali Wong perform stand-up comedy. Being the group that we were, we planned every meal and excursion during our weekend there. It was a super seamless trip and we ate the best meals, had the best drinks, and always had something to do.
Getting to Vegas was a little chaotic because we decided to fly in instead of drive from California, and some people’s flights got canceled. But because we’re all bad-ass women, the ones whose flights were canceled sat at the airport and plowed their way onto a plane eventually.
We all landed at around the same time and found each other at one of those airport liquor stores, where we stocked up on booze and mixers for the apartment we were staying at.
The only thing we didn’t end up doing during our Vegas trip was work out. Some of us thought we’d be ambitious and wake up early to do yoga or something, but that never happened. Oh well.
Club 1973 before the Ali Wong show.
We got drunk giddy in the Uber on the way to see Ali Wong, who was hilarious. I’ve never laughed so much in one night. When Ali was done, we stood to give her an ovation, clutching the 5 and 0 mylar balloons we had brought and waving them like crazy. We all swear to God that she saw us up in the balcony and waved at us. Represent!
Later, in the summer, we met up for another girls' weekend in Laguna Beach, where one friend has a home overlooking the ocean. We went to a tiki bar, got massages and facials, and again had amazing meals at stellar restaurants.
The last big excursion of our birthday year was the fabulous 50th birthday one friend had at her fabulous pad near Oakland. Her husband made the biggest and best charcuterie table I’ve ever seen, filled with goodies he grew himself in their garden. There was a music performance and speciality cocktails. It was posh and grown up and we all stayed up til the early morning hours talking in her living room long after everyone had left.
Some of us have already turned 51, but we’re still making plans to have fun together. Next month everyone is coming to L.A., this time to see a comedy performance by Sheng Wang, who had opened for Ali Wong in Vegas and who we became fast fans of. He’s performing at the Wiltern, so we’re going to hang out in Koreatown before and after the show, have dinner, go to an all-night cafe for fancy dessert, and hopefully hit up an all-night spa.
Ringing in our 50th birthdays has been so incredibly fun and affirming. For one, none of us look 50 or act it. To think that I’m older now than my mom was when I left home for college is crazy to me. She just seemed so grown-up at that age. And I just don’t seem or feel the same, but maybe that’s just me. Apart from a little creakiness in my lower back and knees, I’m in pretty great shape. My girlfriends and I work out on the regular (see what I wrote about that), we don’t have tons of wrinkles (and no work done!), and, sure, some of us dye the grays away, but otherwise we’ve all got great hair, ha!
Spending this time with all of them made up for my actual birthday. Originally I wanted to have a picnic somewhere in Pebble Beach, up by Monterery, California—wine, cheese, chocolate—but my husband and I caught COVID after avoiding it for three years of the pandemic. We think we got it traveling through Arizona on our way back from a trip to New Mexico. We were put on Paxlovid, got better fairly quickly—keeping our son from catching it—but then we both rebounded. And then promptly infected our son. In total, my little family dealt with COVID for over two weeks during my birthday month. No trip to Monterey, no camping trip to Yoseite the following week, and no trip to a water park I had promised to take my son to. It was such a bummer.
My family and I at the cemetery so I could thank my mama for having me 50 years ago. I miss her.
But the day itself was actually really nice even though I was still feeling a little sick. All I wanted to do was visit my mother at the cemetery and thank her for having me 50 years ago. Her pregnancy with me was not easy, that much I know. She was the most amazing woman and mother, so I just wanted to spend this momentous birthday with her. My dad, older sister, and her husband met up with us there and we celebrated with cake and champagne. We brought our lawn chairs and hung out with mom for a few hours. We then went home and I took a much-needed, glorious nap. Despite the COVID of it all, it was the 50th birthday I think I was going to have all along. I’ll never forget. And I’ll never forget the memories my best friends and I have made during this golden year.