The time change is beating me up a little bit: I can’t seem to stop waking up well before 5:00 AM, and wanting to pass out at 8:30 PM! I am going to try to take a reset nap today if I can because otherwise BLP Live is going to kick my butt 🙂
(Or maybe I will just leave the late night festivities to Laura, who is usually FAR more game to hang out after 9 PM!)
ON THE PLUS SIDE, I have been able to complete my morning pages with ease given this extended pre-dawn time period. I am exactly 5 days in. I am using a Moleskine A5-sized notebook (and a different pen each day so far, to keep things fresh). If I were using a letter-sized page, this practice would take me all day. However, my print is pretty small so I think Julia Cameron would approve. Speaking of Julia, her program is intense. I don’t know if I will ever have the bandwidth (or desire) to truly follow it, but it has been inspiring to learn about. There are also SO many great reflective prompts in there!
Today, I really liked: “Describe yourself at eighty. What did you do after fifty that you enjoyed? Be very specific. Now, write a letter from you at eighty to you at your current age.”
(I suppose it would start something like “Dear youthful midlife SHU, I am so glad to be alive to be writing this letter . . . “)
Also, what DO I want to enjoy after 50? It’s such a great question! Probably river cruises, among other things. (Except: I will still have 2 kids at home including a middle schooler at age 50. I mean really, 50 is not all that far away, though it sounds kind of like it should be. And I’m not sure any 7th grader would really want to go on a river curse, so maybe that’s more of a 60 pastime for me.)
In other news, I have more time than I thought I would today, because I accidentally scheduled G’s pre-op PCP appointment for this morning and it’s a BIG field trip day (canoe trip!) so I ended up moving it to first thing tomorrow (shout out to my former resident who now works at the PCP office who is amazing and kind and helped me fix my mistake). So: more time = I need to work on some things I had been ostensibly putting off because I “didn’t have time”, such as figuring out how to operationalize my preorder bonuses in Mailchimp and finalizing my slides for BLP Live (admittedly it’s about time to finish that task, anyway).
ONWARD AND UPWARD, everyone. What do YOU want to enjoy after 50?
27 Comments
This just prompted me to make a chart of my age and my 3 kids ages/grades. I don’t know WHY I can’t keep it straight in my head!! My youngest will be 18 when I’m 51 (I believe I am currently 43, but who can keep track), and the main thing I want to do at that point is take a month-long trip somewhere, and ideally be in a role where I’m less geographically tied to be in a certain place (but that’s a long shot at this point!)
I know, it’s handy to have a chart! Every time I think about my kids’ ages now, I remember how much I thought 8/12/14 would be the best ever stage in parenting. Honestly, most of the time it is pretty great! (and technically we are still at 7.75 / 11.6 / 13.5, so perhaps it will get even better in the next ~6 months.)
My son will be 18 when I turn 50. I’ll still have many more years of work, but I quite like the idea of having more time – for work projects, for couple time, for travelling, etc. We’re moving back into the city, and this was a big motivator. I see our neighbours (two kids, 2 good jobs) and I think they must be so BORED in our little town? And I don’t want to be bored, on top of a terrible commute?
We will be 58 when our youngest graduates from high school! So our 50s will look way different from many/most of our peers. But it will mirror the 50s of my parents as my mom also had her last child at the same age as me (almost 40) – but it was my 2nd and her 5th! Anyways, I feel that my younger sister kept my parents active and younger than peer without kids, in a way.
But I do not plan to be working for most of my 50s! So I envision more time to workout and travel for pleasure! Beyond that I have no vision for my 50s. I am not great at super long range planning, though! And my husband has no interest in discussing it as there are too many unknowns, like where we would live (which could be influenced by where our kids settle down). He’s too much of a questioner to enjoy this thought experiment.
Maybe if you can come up with a reason it would be a valuable experiment, he would do it 🙂 🙂
I will be freshly 56 when G graduates from high school so we are on fairly similar timelines! Unlike you . . .I presume I will definitely still be working in some capacity (and am okay with that 🙂 ).
Yes to river cruises! I totally see the appeal I just need to convince my husband to see it as well. Haha.
Josh is actually very much on board, woohoo!
My kiddo will be a HS senior when I am 50! So crazy to think about how close both milestones are.
Love the idea of river cruises! I want to travel and spend time with my husband, that’s really my only vision of life post 50.
sounds like an amazing vision to me!!!!
I will be 50 when A graduates – didn’t realize she and C are in sync! (then i decided to make myself an old mom by having G. Haha. When she graduates, G will just be finishing 6th grade, many years of middle + HS left! I think about what it will be like for those 4 years with just one kid at home (well, most likely) a lot.
50 doesn’t sound too far for me, it’s 5 years away. Fortunately kids will still be with us so I don’t think things will change too much nor how I want to spend my days. Running, traveling, learning about new things, blogging.
If I’m to give a full answer to the question at the end of today’s blog post, my comment will be over 500 words. But, since I do write down a list of things that I’m grateful for each week, I can flip this list around and refer to many of the things that I’m grateful for as things that I also do enjoy right now. You can tell me if you’d like me to give my full answer to the question “What do YOU want to enjoy after 50”, though, Dr. Sarah Hart-Unger. I also know that you’re, in fact, quite good at making use of unexpected down time.
HA! Well, I’m 59 and life has continued on pretty much the same… but that’s what happens when you have your kids late in life. I’m still in the school/work routine, and will be for another year after this. At that point, I’m not sure what life will look like! I guess I need to start thinking about it, right?
Glad to know the morning pages are working so far!
As a 51 year old I can report life is not much different than as a 45 year old and that is probably a good thing.
I am over 50 and my youngest graduated from high school the year I turned 50. I love not having to drive kids places, being able to travel for extended overseas trips. Having the money to pay for extended trips because we don’t have to pay school fees, and all the other kid-related expenses. Go away for weekends without wondering who is going to look after the kids. Having adult kids that we see heaps, but don’t have to look after.
Awww! I’m so glad you’re loving this pnase!!!
I will be 50 in 4.5 years. I will have a 20yo and a 16.5yo. Most importantly I will have 10-15 more years of work ahead of me. So I don’t think 50 mean much for me. I guess I’ll hope to still feel strong and capable in my body at 50. That would be really nice. We’ll see!
I have about 4 years before I turn 50. I had my youngest at 41, so I’ll still have an elementary schooler (and a high school senior) that year — so my 50s will look different than my twin sister’s will, as she had her girls at ages 28 and 30. She’ll be an empty nester and I’ll still be a busy mom. I don’t mind it though! There might be some envy of the freedom some of my peers will enjoy, but OTOH once my kids move out my life will change drastically and I want to enjoy my time with them. I will be 59 when my youngest graduates from high school. But I would be 59 that year anyway! So — my 50s will primarily be spent as mom to an only child, since his siblings are 6 and 9 years older than him. And that will be a VERY different dynamic than the little-kid years of my 30s or the mom-of-3 years of my 40s.
This is a really interesting prompt, and it’s something I like to think about a lot. I’m trying to get my husband to think more intentionally about the future and he hates that kind of thing!
you have the same as me – a “long tail” with one kid at the end! I can’t believe G will be alone for all of high school. It makes me a little sad to think about but I’m sure those will be fun years, too.
My husband is the youngest in his family by a wide margin too, so he was an only child by the time he was in about 4th grade. He has nothing bad to say about it! Those of us who grew up with siblings close in age have a hard time imagining what it must be like, but if it’s just life to that child, I don’t see it as a negative. My husband talks fondly about the vacations he was able to take with his parents as an only child, lol.
I’ll *in theory* become an empty nester right around the time of my 50th birthday. I have a goal of traveling to all 50 states before 50, so I envision my time off to be spent visiting my kids & revisiting favorite locations, and maybe more international travel! I’m looking forward to transitioning to different types of community involvement, and have considered running for a position in local government, so that may align nicely time-wise with my kids being out of the house! I can also see myself picking up a more intense fitness hobby (long distance running? cross fit? more serious weight lifting? who knows!) and maybe re-learning an instrument.
This is a fun exercise. I’ll have an 11 and 15 year old when I turn 50, and so will be 57 when my kids are over 18. Id love to be doing more regular travel, writing novels, probably still working (in academia or as a writer or something else I’m unsure), with more time for weekend hikes and gardening. But who knows!
I’m already past 50 and am looking forward to retiring in a few years. I want to do more teaching at church, writing books, volunteering for local historical societies, and hopefully playing with grand babies. I also hope to visit family in Europe more often than every five years.
that sounds lovely!!
As 50 is not that far away – eek! – maybe I should be contemplating what I want to enjoy after 50. I do hope to be able to keep running (sorry, I hope that is not too sore of a spot for you) and to be fit and healthy for many traveling adventures. I’d also hope to still improve on managing time… there’s never enough, or so it seems.
I definitely don’t mind you wanting to keep running!!! And definitely share your desire to be fit and healthy for future travel + life 🙂
Well, I am fifty! So I guess I’m just enjoying life generally 🙂 I’m enjoying writing, gardening, walking, Peloton-ing, yoga-ing, reading…all the things I was enjoying in my forties, just doing them more now.
Man, I’m in my late 30s and I want to take a river cruise NOW. Haha! If I start now, I’ll be a pro by the time I hit my 50s.