51. Not as bad as expected.

This is for men aged 38 to 45. Everyone else, turn the page.

When I turned 5 nanosols (50 solar years), I did a status and lessons learned review.

I just reread it. I still kind of like it, which is pretty good by my standards. It's not as bad as I'd remembered.

51 doesn't get that treatment. But, in contrast to my recent run of bleak posts, I realized I could say something positive.

It's not as bad as I'd expected. My post-fifty buddies, like primips [1] playing mindgames on nullips, pictured a train wreck. Ok, so that's mostly true. But there are exceptions. So don't abandon hope.

Here are four things at year 51 that are better than expected.

1. After fifteen years of struggle, I have a good solution for my memory fragments. Thank you RespophNotes, Simplenotes and Notational Velocity!
2. I had thirty years of a bad back that got real bad in my 40s. Now I have a great back, with no surgery. Thank you Physicians Neck and Back Clinic.
3. Thanks to #1 I came across a note I wrote 10 years ago. I listed a number of habits and practices that were making me less productive than I could be. None of them are true any more. Honest. Some of them I figured out, others life beat out of me (with brass knuckles).
4. I looked in the mirror about six weeks ago and my denial collapsed. My muscles were not coming back. I wasn't 10 lbs overweight any more, I was 20 lbs overweight and getting worse. I can't exercise more [2], so I adopted a radical new diet program - EALL [3].

There. Don't you feel all encouraged now?

[1] Med slang for women with one spin in labor and delivery.

[2] That's a lie of course, but it's less of a lie than you think.

[3] EALL - "Eat a lot less" and use a good scale daily. I had to permanently drop my food intake around 40, so this is the 2nd permanent drop. I'm not looking forward to drop #3. At least we're saving money.