Our 50s Are The New 20s…But Better.

Can we talk about how absolutely all over the place your 50s are?

Because I don’t think anyone prepared me for this.

When you’re younger, age seems to come with a general life stage. In your teens, you’re figuring out who you are. In your 20s, you’re supposedly becoming an adult, although I use the word adult very loosely here. Your 30s tend to be filled with careers, kids, and mortgages. Your 40s are spent wondering why going out past 9 p.m. suddenly sounds exhausting.

But your 50s?

Apparently, there are no rules.

None.

You can put ten 50-something women in a room together, and I swear we could all be living completely different lives.

One of us has a 30-year-old child.

Another has a 3-year-old.

One is helping plan her daughter’s wedding while another is trying to survive potty training.

Someone is celebrating her 30th wedding anniversary, someone else just finalized a divorce, and somebody is dating a man young enough that the rest of us are quietly doing math in our heads.

Wait. He’s how old?

And you know what?

Good for her.

We Are Definitely Not All in the Same Place

I think that’s what surprises me most about this age.

There’s no longer this imaginary timeline we’re all following.

Some of us have been married for 25 or 30 years. We’ve built entire lives with someone. We’ve raised kids, bought houses, survived financial disasters, family drama, health scares, teenage attitudes, and arguments about whose turn it is to decide what’s for dinner.

Some of us are newly married.

Some are dating again for the first time since flip phones were a thing.

Some are happily single and have absolutely no desire to change that.

Some are swiping right.

Some are deleting the apps for the seventh time while declaring, “I am DONE with dating.”

And some are dating 25-year-olds.

Again.

Good. For. Her.

Meanwhile, motherhood in your 50s is its own strange little universe.

Some of us have grown kids who have their own homes, careers, relationships, and maybe even children.

We’re becoming grandmothers.

And then there are women our exact same age packing lunches and doing elementary school drop-off.

Think about that.

Two women can both be 52 years old. One is buying a crib for her grandbaby while the other is buying one for her own baby.

If that doesn’t prove that the idea of being “where you’re supposed to be” by a certain age is bs, I don’t know what does.

Careers Are Just as All Over the Place

Then there’s work.

I remember thinking that by the time you reached your 50s, you had everything figured out.

You had your career.

You knew what you were doing.

You were established.

Maybe you had one of those offices with a door and a nameplate and knew important things about retirement accounts.

Adorable.

Some people in their 50s absolutely are at the top of careers they’ve spent decades building. They’re thinking about retirement dates and pensions and whether they can finally spend winters somewhere warm.

Others are starting over.

Completely.

Maybe they stayed home raising kids and are entering the workforce again or for the first time.

Maybe the career they chose at 22 doesn’t fit the person they became at 52.

Maybe they got laid off.

Maybe they finally admitted they hate what they’ve been doing for the last 25 years.

Or maybe they woke up one morning and thought, You know what? I want something different.

So while one 55-year-old is calculating whether she can retire in three years, another 55-year-old is sitting at her kitchen table with a laptop, starting a business, writing a blog, going back to school, or trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up.

And I kind of love that.

Maybe This Is the Age When the Timeline Falls Apart

We’ve spent so much of our lives being handed milestones.

Graduate.

Get a job.

Build a career.

Buy a house.

Get married.

Have kids.

Save money.

Retire.

As if life is one giant checklist (although I do love a list), and if you complete everything in the correct order, congratulations! You win adulthood.

Except life doesn’t work like that.

People get divorced.

People fall in love again.

Careers end.

New ones begin.

Kids grow up.

Parents need us more.

Friendships change.

Bodies change.

Priorities REALLY change.

And sometimes the life we thought we wanted at 25 isn’t even remotely close to the life we want at 50.

That’s the part I’m starting to find really interesting.

Because maybe your 50s aren’t about finally having everything figured out.

Maybe they’re about realizing you don’t have to.

We’re Old and Young at the Same Time

This age is weird because some days I feel incredibly grown-up.

I’ve lived enough life to know that most things work themselves out eventually. I’ve survived things I once thought would completely break me. I’ve learned that people come and go, plans change, and sometimes the things that feel like endings are actually beginnings.

Very wise.

Very mature.

And then I’ll walk into a room and forget why I’m there.

So there’s that.

We are old enough to have wisdom and young enough to still do something with it.

Old enough to know better.

Young enough to occasionally do it anyway.

We can have reading glasses in our purse and concert tickets on our phone.

We can talk about menopause at dinner and then stay out until midnight.

Okay, 10:30.

Let’s not get crazy.

We can help our kids navigate adulthood while secretly Googling things like, Is it too late to completely change my life?

Spoiler alert: I don’t think it is.

Maybe That’s What Makes This Decade So Good

There was a time when being in your 50s sounded… old.

There. I said it.

When I was 25, someone who was 55 might as well have been 80.

Surely by then you wore sensible shoes, had a favorite grocery store, and spent your evenings discussing property taxes.

And, okay, some of us do have favorite grocery stores now.

But 50 doesn’t feel the way I thought 50 would feel.

There’s still so much happening.

People are falling in love.

Getting divorced.

Traveling alone for the first time.

Starting businesses.

Changing careers.

Getting tattoos.

Becoming grandparents.

Raising toddlers.

Moving across the country.

Going back to school.

Learning how to be alone.

Learning how to love someone again.

Learning how to love themselves.

We’re closing chapters and starting new ones, sometimes at the exact same time.

And maybe that’s why this decade feels so chaotic.

There’s no single version of what a woman in her 50s looks like anymore.

Honestly, I’m not sure there ever was. Maybe we just didn’t see all the different versions when we were younger.

There Is No “Behind” Anymore

I think one of the best things we can do for ourselves at this age is stop looking sideways.

Stop wondering why someone else has more money saved.

Why she’s still married.

Why she got divorced.

Why her career looks more successful.

Why her kids seem more settled.

Why she’s traveling constantly.

Why she found love again.

Why she seems to know exactly what she’s doing.

Because we are not running the same race.

Hell, we’re not even on the same track.

One of us is approaching retirement while another is on day one of a brand-new career.

One is celebrating 30 years of marriage while another is nervous about a first date.

One is babysitting grandchildren while another is trying to convince a preschooler that pants are not optional.

How could there possibly be one correct timeline for all of us?

There isn’t.

And maybe that’s the freedom of your 50s.

You finally start realizing there never was.

What a Wild Ride

So here we are.

Our 50s.

Somewhere between “I have so much life experience” and “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.”

Some of us are settled.

Some are starting over.

Some are doing both.

And I think that’s pretty incredible.

Because this isn’t the decade where life winds down like I once imagined it would.

It’s messy and exciting and heartbreaking and hilarious and confusing.

It’s endings and beginnings.

It’s letting go of who you thought you were supposed to be and getting curious about who you might still become.

Maybe that’s what I love most about this stage of life.

There is no template anymore.

No schedule.

No finish line we’re all racing toward together.

Just a whole bunch of us out here living wildly different versions of 50-something and figuring it out as we go.

And if you happen to be dating a 25-year-old while you’re figuring it out?

Well.

I have questions.

But I’m also going to need details.