You Know You’re Fifty When

You Know You're 50 When . . . “You’re only as old as he feels.” —51-year-old divorcée discussing her new personal trainerHow do you know when you’re approaching 50? For most of us, it’s simple, like consulting a birth certificate or realizing that, lately, it’s taking a bit longer to touch up those roots. For others, it’s more subtle—like growing misty-eyed upon hearing the Beatles sing “Yesterday” or trying to recall where your gum line was the day Nixon resigned. Happily, however, reaching 50 is not so bad. Not only does it mean you survived your forties, but it confers certain privileges. You get to do really cool things, like join the AARP, drape a natty afghan over your shoulders when you feel a chill, and spend your kids’ inheritance on cruises, trips to Paris, and liposuction. Wrinkles now become “laugh lines,” and, best of all, tactful friends start putting only one candle on your birthday cakes, thus sparing you the effort of blowing out fifty at once.Actually, deciding whether you’re 50 is easy. Determining which type of 50 you are—Typical (the blood rushes to your head when you try to open a stuck window) or Youthful (you still watch MTV, but in wingtips)—may be a problem. We hope these pages will help.