birthdays

so, I have many friends who are going to be turning 30 in the next year or so. And that seems like a pretty big deal. I really can't predict how I'm going to react to that event for myself. I never had a list of things that needed to be accomplished by that time, so I don't feel like I'm running out of time to make something of myself.

However, I also have a friend who's turning 50 next year. That's a bigger deal. She's planning to host a party of 50 women, what she's calling a "Slumber Party/Suicide Watch." (Which I believe is more panic than real danger). And she's already panicking about turning 49, which she wasn't expecting. I think she'd thought everything would be chill until the night before turning 50, when suddenly the realization of the age would hit her. Turns out to not be the case.

So there are a lot of questions this creates for me. Can someone who's not yet 30 really sympathize and support someone who's turning 50? I can be caring and concerned, but really have no way to create the life experiences and the actual fear of that time. I have anticipation of that fear, but I'm not sure it can really sink in until then.

And then the questions become, what will I want to do for my 50th birthday? What would I be scared of then, and if I can figure out what it would be, can I change it? And is this all just naive pondering that continues to show my inability to grasp the full significance of that birthday?