There's no big deal about 48

Today, I turned 48, and I just want to ask you one thing. So what?
Turning 48 doesn't mean anything. No one has ever put these words on the front of a birthday card: "So, you're 48!" And the reason is simple. Forty-eight is without characteristics.
I have more wrinkles. My skin has less elasticity. My hair is grayer beneath my Clairol, and my back aches more frequently. But there are undoubtedly other 48-year-olds with more wrinkles, some with naturally brunette hair, and others who are running marathons.
But other ages, it should be noted, do have identities. You may look forward to them, or you may rue their approach, but they're ages of renown.
Cool for school
At 6, for example, you can go to school. Suddenly, you go from being a baby to walking in the footsteps of your older brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. Your mother dabs her eyes with a tissue, and your dad takes your picture. It's a big age.
At 13, you hear the words you've been waiting 12 years to hear: "So. You're a teenager now!" A teenager. Hot dawg!
Sixteen is even bigger. After driving over enough curbs to give your father an ulcer, you get your driver's license and more freedom than you (or your parents) know what to do with. It's another landmark age.
At 18, men and women have the right to cast their vote in a presidential election. Now, they can affect not only the drivers in their town, but people the world over. (You can also smoke a cigar in public, which my son did to celebrate his 18th birthday a year and a half ago.)
Goodbye to teens
At 20, one is no longer a teenager. And though it seemed like a wonderful thing at 13, it is even more wonderful to leave it behind.
At 21, you have the right to drink. And, even if you've been secretly emptying kegs since your first high school football game, this is a hallmark. You go out and have a drink "on the house" somewhere, legally.
At 30, you're no longer considered "young" for most anything but business and politics (or by people older than 50). In fact, it is the age at which you can, for the first time, become a U.S. senator.
At 35, you hear a strange new sound; it is you or your spouse's biological clock ticking. Whereas relatives used to ask, "When are you going to start a family?" they now ask, "Don't you think you'd better start a family ... before it's too late?" On a more positive note, it is the first year you are eligible to serve as president of the United States.
Back side of the hill
Forty is when your best friend buys you a T-shirt, and you put it in the bottom of a dresser drawer and never remove it. It reads, "Over the hill."
Fifty is what we euphemistically, and overly optimistically, view as the heart of middle age. When we were young, we thought it would be 40, but I assure you, it is not. It is 50. Fifty is, in fact, the youth of our old age.
At 55, you can start claiming senior discounts, something you looked forward to at 30, but which is surprisingly sobering when you finally do it.
At 65, you may retire, something you've looked forward to since you got your first job.
At 67, you can collect full Social Security benefits, if they still exist (at least those of us who were born after 1939 will have to wait that long.)
Now you're old
At 70, you are old, and people start to treat you like it, beginning with birthday cards that no longer make any mention of being old. (Ironically, from ages 40 to 65 you DID get numerous cards about thinning hair and sagging breasts, cakes melting from excessive candles, Milk of Magnesia and walkers. But now that you really have these things, no one mentions them.)
By 80, people are celebrating your longevity.
At 90, they are marveling at it.
If you hit 100, Willard Scott will put Smucker's jam on his morning toast in your honor, and will project your picture into a bottle of jelly and say, "Here's Diane Murphy. Isn't she a cutie?"
But 48? What's that? I have nothing to say about it, except to whine. And I like you all far too much for that.
murphy@vindy.com