Fifty is not the new thirty....It's a period so full of changes, adjustments, and loss that the reconfiguration of your life and psyche almost becomes a full-time job. One of the most confusing things about being fifty is that there is really no game plan in place. No matter what trail you end up taking, there is a very clear life map from twenty to fifty....much of a female's childhood is spent fantasizing about and play-acting all the fabulous things that will happen between twenty and fifty. Someday my prince will come...playing house...You grow up, you get out of school, you fall in love and out of it several times, you get your heart broken and mended and broken and mended until it resembles a crazy quilt. During this period you get a job, then you get better at your job, and eventually you get a better job. One day you finally find a guy who calls back, says what he means, and loves the fact all your soup cans have to be aligned, so you get married.
With luck you stay married. But if you fall into the half of people whose marriages collapse, chances are you can find someone else by forty-five. Buth then---dum de dum dum dum--fifty...things will start falling apart; some marriages end...some jobs are terminated, most faces fall, and all boobs do. But no one bothered to fill us in on this.
No one gives women a game plan for a hearty last thirty years....Fifty....arrives with baggage.
You find yourself crying.....Losing the remote--or, worse, pushing the wrong button so the screen ends up all fuzzy and no matter what you do, you can't get the picture back--can send you into a total mental meltdown. This is what actually happens. No one prepares you for it, and so you think you are losing your mind along with every other part of yourself you have known for the last forty years. When your mind seems like it's going in mid-conversation and you can't remember Nixon's first name, it feels like the next stop is the assisted-living home....I ask you: is there anything less appealing that a wrinkled, dry, emotionally out of whack woman who can't remember Nixon's name, spontaneously bursts into tears at the thought of her childhood dog, and is perpetually overheated?...Suddenly you can't sleep, or you can get to sleep but you wake up every hour on the hour.
Men may not go through the syptoms, but they are the recipients of much of the fallout.
Come fifty, we are supposed to get tested on a regular basis for a multitude of possible health disasters. This indicates we have arrived at the place where---well, shit happens....The age range between fifty and sixty-five is sometimes referred to as the Bermuda Triangle of health.
Most women will end up much worse off financially than when they started or were in their middle years....By the time they hit fifty many women end up divorced, some widowed....Once you hit fifty, your big moneymaking years may be either behind you or winding down....Spend less than you make.....If you start now, you have a couple of decades to build up something, even if you are not making what you once were...The truth is, we really do have to start getting more serious about money in our fifties, no matter what our situation may be.
If you are divorced and working and you don't have to support kids, living below your means is a great way to go.....You may be living below your means already and still be unable to save....You still have time. You have time to save. Time to learn to live with less. Time to reevaluate your needs. Time to stash away that extra money...The day will come for most people when we'll be living off what we have saved; we will have what we have at that point, and no more will be coming in.
Many women end up alone at fifty anyway, sometimes of their choosing, many times not. Numerous changes happen in relationships at this time of life. Some women get left. It sucks, it's unfair, but it happens every day....Life is a process of finding out that you're not that special, that whatever can happen to anybody else can happen to you....Doing you is all you can do. And more likely than not you will be exactly what someone is looking for. But to make it happen takes time, effort, and sometimes patience.
I believe it is better to be peaceful alone than miserable with someone. I have been there, and being unhappy when you are actually in a relationship is lonelier and more depressing than simply being on your own and actively doing things to make yourself a new future. Sadly, many women don't understand this and stay in bad relationships because they figure it's better to be with someone than with no one....You can choose to be happy, and happy does not always mean a man and a relationship....In your fifties there is still time to start over....You're not going to see your golden anniversary, but if you start from scratch in your fifties and if you both live out your life expectancy, you can be married for thirty years.
Great relationships involve a certain magic that is hard to find. Good ones sometimes are the result of patience and a dose of settling for perhaps a little less than you were hoping for.
Half of fifty-year-olds have lost at least one parent. If they haven't lost one, they are taking care of one, worrying about one, or very likely dealing with the health issues of one or both.
....even if you believe in the afterlife...it still doesn't make living on planet Earth easier without those you loved.
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