Intown and in the Mountains 49 and feeling fine

While we were in production for this issue of INtown, I celebrated my 49th birthday. Okay, celebrated might be too strong a word. I worked a nearly 12-hour day and picked up dinner at the Publix deli. Woot! Party!

My friends had taken me out to dinner over the weekend, so it’s not like there wasn’t some observance. I’m not hung up on surprise parties or big gestures, so my actual birthday sliding by quietly was fine with me. It was nice to see all the well wishes on Facebook, so that made me feel loved and recognized.

Also, 49 feels like an odd age. I’m quite aware that I’m teetering on the edge of the second half of my life, but I’m busy and focused on the here and now. I have a new collection of poetry, “Midnight in a Perfect World,” being published in November, which will be followed by readings in Atlanta, across the country and in the United Kingdom through 2019. I’ve been working on this collection for almost five years, so I am thrilled that award-winning Sibling Rivalry Press (who published my last collection and my Venus Trilogy of novels) took another chance on me.

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I’m also continuing to focus on my health. If you’ve read my previous columns, you’ll know that I went on a big weight loss journey after being diagnosed with diabetes back in 2016. I lost 100 pounds and I feel better than I have in decades. I surely don’t feel 49, so that’s another reason not to dwell on the number. I’m more concerned with maintaining my weight and diet. I thought losing all the weight would be the big challenge, but keeping it off has been hell. I bought a bathroom scale – against my better judgment –and found myself becoming obsessive compulsive about that number. I finally slid it into the bathroom closet and haven’t stepped on it in a couple of months. I’m continuing to walk three miles a day and eat healthy.

The other thing that’s been keeping me busy is my mom, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the summer of 2016. Her only option was complete removal of her stomach and the insertion of a feeding tube. She refused that treatment and opted for a round of radiation instead. It has slowed the cancer and she continues to have one of the most healthy appetites I’ve ever seen and still loves to go on outings and bingo with her cronies. She was given a year to live without the radical surgery, but we are, at this writing, two years and three months since diagnosis. She’s a fighter.

I’m not afraid of 50. I have a big trip to Australia and New Zealand in the works for next fall to mark that milestone birthday, so I hope to be celebrating in Sydney with my Aussie friends and fellow poets. I’m looking forward to more travel and writing as I start “act two.” In many ways, I feel like I’m just getting started.

49 is just a number. And a prelude.

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Peggy Hibbert