50somethingmag

This applies to your closet (if I haven’t worn it in two years, goodbye) and your soul (if you drain me, goodbye). By 50, your tolerance for drama has the viscosity of concrete. You’ve survived real things—loss, illness, heartbreak. You don’t have time for manufactured ones. You learn that “sorry, I can’t” is a complete sentence.

The performance is over. The real show has just begun. 50somethingmag

Of course, this decade has its shadows. The body reminds you of its mortality. Parents may fade or fall. Children leave and don’t always call back. The word “perimenopause” or “prostate” enters everyday vocabulary. Friends get sick. You look at the calendar and do the math: you likely have more years behind you than ahead. This applies to your closet (if I haven’t

Because here is the secret of the 50Something: You are living in the now. You have shed the skin of who you were supposed to be and are finally wearing who you actually are. You don’t have time for manufactured ones

You finally give yourself permission to do the weird thing. Take up watercolors even though you have no talent. Travel alone. Quit the committee you never liked. Start the small garden. Write the novel that will never be published. Your fifties are not about legacy—that’s a trap. They are about aliveness . Right now. Not for the resume. For you.