Fierce at 50

I just had lunch with a friend I had lost touch with for most of the last 15 years, beginning when we were in our mid 30s and working hard on getting our professional lives rolling. Of course, we got around to talking about the "then's and now's" of our lives. Many of her friends didn't like getting older much at all, she said. How did I feel? Straight from the heart, I replied, "I feel happier, stronger, smarter, more confident now than I have ever felt in my life."

Surprised even myself, but it is true. I don't understand what combination of personal goals, encounters or events have brought me to this wonderful feeling at this stage in life, but I am riding it for all it is worth. Life feels like a planetful of opportunity to me these days.

Start studying a new language? Sure. Teach myself to paint? Why not? Get myself into the best physical shape I've been in my life? Start tagging along with my husband to loud rock'n rolls shows at grungy music bars? What a riot! I have even taken a kickboxing class and conquered my fear of guns by taking a gun safety class.

Why not reach out and try something new? What do we really have to lose, except, maybe, our sense of being in control of the world for a little while? It's all out there to try. It is all doable. And the best surprise, it's been really, really FUN.

No looking back. Only forward. Howard Schultz has it exactly right with the title of his new book. "Onward."