Oh, Hi, Five-O

Some people think of 30 as their first big age of reckoning. For others, 40 might be that age.

I've barely crept over the latter number, but Saturday was my first encounter with the big 5-0.

Strolling over to the start line for a local 5K race I had signed up, I began thinking of my next birthday, which isn't really too far away at this point. Historically, I haven't paid too much attention to the day in the past nor have I bothered to celebrate or dread them in particular.

My mind mulled over how I might spend this particular year's encounter with this event, when suddenly a notion I had never ever considered flashed from out of nowhere - looking at the big picture, I'm not really that far removed from fifty.

That notion brought a whole flurry of nano-thoughts and nano-questions that peskily flew around my brain like mosquitoes circling around a porch light during the dusk of a warm summer day. I turned my head as to avert my gaze and glanced at the car parked next to me on the driveway.

Eerily, the car's license plate ended with the numerals 5-0.

After staring warily at that vision for a few moments, my mind reverted back to pre-running race mode. Fifty years of age is still a long time off, or so I convinced myself. Besides, I had fifty hectometers of running to deal with and it was 8:50 in the morning, which meant I had 10 minutes to get to the start line.