5 Reasons I’m Happy to be Over 50

A year ago, I was invited to participate in a discussion about menopause. My friend, a life coach, asked me to share my experiences with a half-dozen of her clients, all in various stages of menopause. What happened next shocked me.

Within minutes, they were crying. These women were not weenies. They were accomplished mothers, career women, professionals, even a retired professional athlete, but they were scared. They were freaking out about the changes in their bodies and minds.

It happened again last month at the writing conference in Denver. I’d be talking about positive aging and guess which age group was the most intrigued, hungry, even passionate about my topic? Yup. Them again.

They had so many questions and were so earnest, I fell in love with them like daughters. They wanted to know there’s joy ahead, that in the face of everything they’re losing or afraid of losing, there’s reason to be excited about the future. They want to know they’re not alone in being anxious or even scared. As they told me about their fears, I found myself spewing answers like a volcano. I wanted them to know it gets better. Because it does. And BTW, for my older friends who are reading this, high-fives for getting to the chill place you are now.

Here are the five major things I was glad to leave behind in my fifties:

Number 5. Trying to decide whether to let my hair go gray, and the wrenching cultural and psychological implications of that question.

Number 4. Fibroids and being afraid to leave the house. Like that day at a mall in San Antonio, not knowing how the hell I was going to get back out to my car without leaving a trail of blood. Wondering if I would go into shock or bleed to death, all alone there in the back of Macy’s (it was pre-cell phones.)

Number 3. Reverse puberty: going through all that confusion and horribleness, but for the purpose of LOSING my ability to make babies.

Number 2. Wondering what would happen to my sexuality after menopause and a total hysterectomy. Didn’t that equate to being neutered? (Note to younger women: somehow, not.)

Number 1. Seeing my kids mature, losing my dad, and feeling my mortality ever more keenly.

I lived through it, and now I’m really happy. I think my sixties are the best age I’ve ever been. It’s such a fruitful time! Both Gloria Steinem and Dr. Christiane Northrup say that after the storm of menopause fades, you’re more like who you were at ten or eleven.

But it’s a little scary if you have no idea how you will experience menopause and its aftereffects. Everyone ages differently. Unlike with child development where you know approximately what to expect and when, it’s different with older humans. Have you heard the saying, “If you’ve seen one 90-year-old, you’ve seen one 90-year-old”? It’s because human development slides farther off track the older you are. We diverge from each other and from the norms as we mature, shaped by various influences like good or bad parenting, good or bad health, good or bad schools, good or bad family economics.

Menopause is such a weird phase anyway. There you were, a fully formed adult, used to your body’s rhythms, not really thinking about it that much, and then one day it’s like HOLY HELL, WHAT is going ON??? But nobody can tell you for sure what to expect. Nobody can tell you! You’ve had 50 years to differentiate from every other woman your age. Even if you’re a twin, this transition will be a mystery until it’s over. How will you come out the other side? Dunno!

So you get hauled into this phase of your life, which lasts several years and can be terrifying, ugly, uncomfortable…or not. Some women hardly notice it. Some turn homicidal (hyperbole!) You won’t know until you’re in it.

And then you’re past it, everything settles back down and you know who you are again. You become reacquainted with your rhythms and patterns, and you don’t have to worry about freaky changes being sprung on you (menopause-related, anyway.) As we age, we tend to get calmer, gaining a heightened ability to roll with the punches. It’s partly physiological (perhaps changes in the amygdala), but it might be psychological: I think I’m more at peace because I know who and what I am.

My women friends who are my age and older all have more balance or equilibrium. We’re sanguine, we’re calm. We don’t feel what you’re feeling. It’s old news to us now. We’ve moved on. We’re starting new things. The anguish of our menopausal years is in the rearview.

Now, I’m surprised to look back and realize how special my 50s were. Oh sure, I was a bleeding, writhing, crying mess, but that was all in the service of being reborn. Looking back, it was an exciting time. I was transitioning to a new form of myself. I was shedding my chrysalis, drying my new wings.

Probably you’d like it to be less exciting. You’d like to have less change and drama. You’ll get there, I promise, and the uncertainty and dynamism of your 50s will fade. There’s joy in that. There’s peace. After the turbulence of menopause ends, you’ll feel more balanced and rational. The weirdness will be behind you. You’ll have made it.

Life settles down, and you adjust your sunglasses, slap on a hat and sunblock, and set out down a brand new path. You’ve got water. You’ve got snacks. You’re ready for the road ahead.

But when you look back, perhaps with a handful of friends and a tanker of wine, you will feel proud of your fifties, and I promise you this: you will feel a little bit wistful for those days when you fought to get to the other side, a brand new, upgraded model of your beloved self.