Life after fifty definitely comes with some downers but over all, it’s time to celebrate moving into the judgement-free liberation zone!

There’s something sort of magical that happens when we get past fifty.

We start to gradually shed the pressure to be more. More successful, more popular, more fun, more accomplished, more perfect.

We ramp up to this point our entire lives – always trying to be more. Now that we’re here and we realize how many years have gone by with us working so hard and trying so desperately to be all of those things we thought we should be – we realize most of it doesn’t truly matter!

After decades of thinking we’re not enough and pushing for more – we get to fifty and finally pause and think…

Holy sh*t, I’m fifty!

Then the shift happens. We go from thinking we should be more, to feeling pretty darn satisfied that we’re not a lot less.

If you’ve turned fifty, you must have had that moment of critical assessment. The one that came right after you moment you felt as old as a dinosaur.

The Da-AMN, I could be doing a lot worse assessment: I’m alive and mostly healthy, I have a roof over my head, I have a great family, loved ones and friends, food on our table – things to be proud of and milestones under my belt.

If this is fifty, this ain’t so bad!

Perhaps we didn’t win the Nobel Prize or achieve the many lofty dreams we had, but we can certainly be grateful for the many good days we’ve had so far – the many perils we’ve escaped, challenges we’ve overcome, and now – the new dreams we are considering for our future.

Our future! Here we are past fifty, and we still have one! Not something we thought we’d say about turning fifty (when we were in our twenties!)

“In fact, looking back, it seems to me that I was clueless until I was about 50 years old.” – Nora Ephron

We have a few more decades to be more focused than ever on what really matters (which may be different for each of us.)

This is the age that we can clearly see what doesn’t matter: what OTHER people think!

Yahoo!!! This is freedom!

It’s so much easier to focus on what matters to us now that we no longer choose to carry around the same worry, shame and fear of being judged. We’re no longer paralyzed by what other people will think (of our clothes, our homes, our cars, our jobs, our choices, our dreams…)

Those judgement days are behind it and it is as liberating AF.

“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” – David Bowie

Just as we start to feel pretty good about where we are in life at fifty…we finally realize that no one else really gives a sh*t! Which is even more liberating!

Combine entering the liberation zone with a whole new perspective on gratitude that we made it here and have plenty of years to go… and BINGO!

Us middies can now target new dreams and fresh goals without fear holding us back.

Welcome to the judgement-free liberation zone my friends!

What will you do with your second chapter?

—  Marlene

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