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"&amp;quot;I woke up in the middle of the night with a horrifying thought,&amp;quot; said my best friend, Harriet. &amp;quot;Is this the year we&amp;#039;re turning 50?&amp;quot; Though in the past, I&amp;#039;ve used one of Harriet&amp;#039;s lines and said that age was just a number and mine was unlisted, now the jig&amp;#039;s up, as all around me my friends are turning the big 5-0. It started this month when someone I&amp;#039;ve known and loved since kindergarten had his birthday. How he could he be half a century old when I can still remember meeting him at the pond when we were six to go ice skating? Then next month, another friend turns 50, and in seven months, it will be my turn. So I&amp;#039;ve started thinking about how I want to mark this milestone, and I&amp;#039;ve decided to celebrate all the year round. Not Harriet. When she received her AARP application in the mail, she said, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t they realize what that does to people when they get it? I&amp;#039;ve heard of women crying when it comes. It&amp;#039;s like a sign of old age,&amp;quot; she continued. &amp;quot;They should raise the age to 60.&amp;quot; I haven&amp;#039;t received anything in the mail, though truthfully I was rather looking forward to my application, as I enjoy reading the magazine and have for years now. But I digress. Back to celebrating. I plan to cash in all my frequent flier miles, and travel somewhere with my family, somewhere exotic and far, far away. &amp;quot;Hawaii,&amp;quot; said Max. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s where I want to go.&amp;quot; Steve suggested a once-in-a-lifetime adventure like bicycling through France or perhaps climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. But no. I don&amp;#039;t want to climb a mountain as I&amp;#039;d keep thinking that the metaphor \u2014 it&amp;#039;s all down hill from here \u2014 would be too literal. What about you readers who&amp;#039;ve had a major birthday. What did you do to mark the occasion? Have any good ideas to share? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/a44602/the-big-5-0-760/>