Things you only know when you are 50
It’s true that I anticipated the passing of my 50th birthday milestone with as much glee as passing a gallstone. I was in denial, furious with my husband for planning a party, cross at the length of the guest list.
I was an idiot.
Shortly afterwards, I was walking in the park with a friend in the sheeting rain discussing The 50 Thing. Our faces were blue with cold. As our dogs scampered in the distance she said: "We’re none of us ever going to look better than we do right now so we might as well get on with it."
In that slightly ridiculous moment, I became fine with it. It’s true your body betrays you. Creaks happen where you didn’t even know you had joints, knees rebel, necks soften. You begin to hold menus so far in front of your face to read them, you might as well give them to someone on the next table to hold.
But if you’re lucky, everything else comes into sharp focus. By now, you have learned to live with regrets, small and large, whether it’s that you’re never going to sing at Covent Garden, win an Oscar or hold your own baby in your arms. When you’ve faced that, have learned that life can smack you hard over the head and then go in for the shins too, it frees you.
The truth is, we’re all still working it out, trying to decipher who we are and what we want, but in a calmer, less terrifying way than we did at 20
Debora Robertson
Sure, there’s nostalgia for the intoxicating optimism of youth. But then you remember how much time you wasted waiting for a boy to call, living off yoghurt, and worrying about what everyone thought about you, from your boss, to your boyfriend, to the woman at the dry cleaner’s.
On hitting her milestone birthday this week, Nicole Kidman said getting to 50 felt like an achievement, but that she still wanted to conduct herself with the abandon of a 21-year old. Nora Ephron wrote in her book about growing older, I Feel Bad About My Neck, ‘Here are some questions I am constantly noodling over: Do you splurge or do you hoard? Do you live every day as if it's your last, or do you save your money on the chance you'll live 20 more years? Is life too short, or is it going to be too long? Do you work as hard as you can, or do you slow down to smell the roses?’
The truth is, we’re all still working it out, trying to decipher who we are and what we want, but in a calmer, less terrifying way than we did at 20. We’re in the foothills of the next part of our lives, and scanning (ok, possibly squinting at) the peaks beyond.
It’s possible the view’s never been better. New research indicates entering your fifties can trigger a burst of creativity. The journal, Trends in Cognitive Science, recently published a report by researchers from the University of Toronto and Harvard which indicated younger people focus more tightly on information. But what plays well in the lab may not be so effective in real life, where an ability to have a broader focus (essentially, to be massively distracted) means older people are able to solve problems more creatively.
So, I’m celebrating my tired, overworked distracted 50-something self, with my To Do lists, handbags bursting with scribbled notes, and head full of plans. It’s time to get on with it. This can be the best time of our lives. We have things to do and there’s never been a better time to do them.
