I’m Over 50. Now What?

The Strange, Exciting Reality of Midlife

A few years ago, I realized something that caught me completely off guard: I had started thinking about the rest of my life.

Not in a morbid way. More like, Wait a minute. How do I actually want to spend the next twenty or thirty years?

For most of my adult life, there was always a next thing. There was work, marriage, family, raising kids, managing a house, making plans, solving problems and generally doing whatever needed to be done. There was always a reason to be busy and usually someone who needed something from me.

But somewhere in my 50s, the question changed.

I wasn't looking ahead to the next milestone in quite the same way anymore. I started looking at my life as something I could actually make choices about.

And that was both exciting and unsettling.

Because when you've spent decades building a life, it's surprisingly complicated to admit that you might want to change parts of it.

The years of doing what needed to be done

For much of adult life, there is a certain rhythm to things. You finish school, start working, build a career, get married or find a partner, buy a house, have children, raise those children and keep moving forward. Even when your particular path looks different, there is usually something in front of you that needs your attention.

For women especially, so much of that time can be spent taking care of other people. There are children who need you, partners who need you, parents who need you, jobs that need you and households that somehow continue to generate an endless list of things that need to be done.

You become very good at keeping everything moving.

Then, eventually, some of those responsibilities begin to change.

Your children get older. Your career may no longer be the center of your identity. Your parents may need you in new ways. Your marriage or long-term relationship may evolve. Friends move, divorce, change careers, or become absorbed in their own families.

The life that once felt completely full can suddenly have some empty spaces.

And those empty spaces can be both wonderful and uncomfortable.

When you finally have room to think

I've realized that having more space in your life doesn't necessarily mean you immediately know how to use it.

For years, you've been making decisions based on what needs to happen next. What's for dinner? Who needs to be picked up? What does the family have going on this weekend? What needs to happen at work? What appointment needs to be scheduled?

Then one day you have a little more freedom, and instead of feeling instantly liberated, you may find yourself wondering what you're supposed to do with it.

I think that's because we can become so accustomed to being needed that we lose touch with what we need.

It's not that we don't have interests. It's that they may have been buried under responsibilities for so long that we have to rediscover them.

And that process can take time.

I thought I'd know more by now

There is a funny expectation that comes with getting older. We assume age is supposed to make us certain.

But I'm not sure that's actually true.

I know a lot more about myself than I did when I was younger. I know what kinds of people I want around me. I know what drains me. I have a much clearer understanding of what matters to me and what doesn't. I've learned from choices that worked out and choices that didn't.

But knowing yourself better doesn't necessarily mean having all the answers. If anything, it can lead to better questions.

I've become much more interested in how I want my everyday life to feel than in whether it looks impressive from the outside. I care more about having time for the people I love, doing things that interest me, having some independence and feeling like I'm actually participating in my own life rather than simply managing it.

That feels like a pretty significant shift.

The uncomfortable part of having choices

There is something both exciting and unsettling about realizing that you may have more choices than you thought.

Because once you acknowledge that, it's harder to blame the old version of your life for the new version of your unhappiness.

That doesn't mean we can all simply walk away from our responsibilities or change everything overnight. Real life doesn't work that way. We have financial obligations, families, relationships, careers, and people who depend on us.

But there are often more choices available than we initially see.

Maybe it's changing where you live. Maybe it's working differently. Maybe it's traveling more. Maybe it's downsizing. Maybe it's making new friends or spending more time alone. Maybe it's having a difficult conversation you've been avoiding. Maybe it's deciding you don't want to keep living according to someone else's definition of a successful life.

Sometimes the choice is external.

Sometimes it's simply deciding to stop waiting for permission.

This isn't a crisis

I know "midlife crisis" is the phrase we're often given for this stage of life. But I'm not convinced that questioning your life is a crisis. Sometimes it's awareness.

There is a difference between recklessly blowing up your life because you've suddenly decided you're unhappy and taking an honest look at the life you're living and asking whether it still fits.

I think the second one can be healthy.

It can be uncomfortable, certainly. But uncomfortable doesn't necessarily mean wrong.

Sometimes discomfort is what happens when you stop avoiding a question you've been carrying for a long time.

There is still a lot of time

One of the things I find both sobering and motivating about being in my 50s is that I am much more aware of time than I used to be.

When you're 25, twenty years seems like forever.

When you're around 50, it doesn't.

That can sound depressing, but I actually find it clarifying. I don't want to spend the next twenty years putting things off because I'm waiting for the perfect circumstances.

I don't want to keep saying I'll travel when things settle down, I'll try that when I have more time, I'll make that change when everyone else is ready.

There will probably always be something.

At some point, we have to decide that our own lives are worth making room for.

So, what now?

I wish I had a beautifully organized answer to that question. I don't. And I'm beginning to think that's okay.

Maybe this part of life isn't about having a master plan. Maybe it's about becoming more intentional about the choices we make from here forward.

It's about asking better questions.

It's about noticing what makes us happy and what doesn't. It's about being willing to admit when something no longer works. It's about making room for things that have been pushed aside. It's about figuring out what we want our days to actually look like, not just what we think our life is supposed to look like at this age.

And maybe it's about being a little less afraid of the unknown.

Because the truth is, I don't know exactly what the next chapter of my life will look like.

I know there will be things I get wrong. There will be surprises, disappointments and probably a few decisions I'll look back on and wonder what I was thinking.

There will also be things I haven't experienced yet that I can't imagine right now. That's the part I'm interested in. I'm not looking to go backward. I'm not trying to recreate my 30s or pretend I'm someone I'm not.

I'm interested in what happens when a woman reaches this stage of life and finally starts asking herself what she wants without automatically putting everyone else's needs first.

I think that's where the really interesting stuff begins.

And maybe that's the answer to "I'm over 50. Now what?"

We find out.