Are you in the right place at 50-something?
Maybe. Maybe not. Let’s find out together!
Consider you are driving your car through life. Youth is in the rearview mirror and there is no turning back. Signs along the roadway indicate that you are headed in the direction of old age but the actual distance remains fairly unclear.
Here you are in the driver’s seat of the moving car. The road that got you to this point was relatively well-mapped out and with the exception of a few detours or surprises along the way, it was a very manageable journey.
Fork(s) in the midlife road
Now, before reaching old age, you feel that you need to steer the car into a rest stop, take a look at a map and consider which route would be best for this leg of your trip. Maybe you can pick up a few (or dozens) of brochures featuring amusements, museums, and adventures along various routes. You may decide to spend this time reviewing your Catalogue of Regrets and Disappointments. This stop is Experience 50.
Your 50s, your midlife years, are the most unscripted time of life. For you, this may be exciting or terrifying, probably both.
When I turned 50, I began to experience losses that knocked me down while at the same time I experienced realizations of joy and beauty and opportunity that lifted me back up. I made bold and sometimes reckless decisions about my life and my place in the world. My perspective changed.
So, I invite you to join me in exploring this most interesting time, your middle-aged years. My followers are anywhere from 40 to 65, residing in countries across the planet, in very different life circumstances. But we are all on the same path.
I invite you to join me and my friends as we learn about and explore ourselves and our options in Experience 50.
About Mary Rogers
Hi! I am the middle-aged woman behind Experience 50. Nice to meet you.
I began the Experience 50 Podcast for Midlife in late 2015 when I decided to make a mission of helping other people to recognize that something kinda wacky happens to many of us at this age. Nobody had warned me ahead of time either.
I’m not a certified coach or therapist. You’ve been warned. Without the confines of those titles, I’m free to say whatever I want. Sure, I coach and counsel my listeners and readers based on my own wisdom, experience, research and common sense. In fact, I devote more time and energy to the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of this midlife experience than anyone I’ve ever met.
I grew up and started my career in Detroit. In my adopted hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, I’m still called Mary In The Morning, from my morning talk radio show. I’ve owned (and sold) my own businesses, managed and led nonprofits, served on boards of directors, consulted start-up and growing businesses and generally been the advice-doling, out front person, the podium and microphone type.
Nobody ever really has to wonder much about what I’m thinking if you know what I mean. I’ve never been very good at pulling punches or holding my tongue. Again, you’ve been warned. But it all comes from the heart, wanting to cut through the fluffy bullsh*t.
Here are a few other things you may want to know:
- Married twice, divorced once
- One son, born in 1986, a daughter in 2000. Yeah, yeah.
- I fearlessly kill any bug or spider I find in my house
- Both of my parents died when I was in my early 30s
- I can drive in reverse better than most
- I’m a certified Small Business Consultant
- I’ve had breast cancer, I’m fine
- I can spot a lost midlifer a mile away
- I just hate paper napkins
- Every day, I pledge to make somebody else’s life suck, just a little bit less
Nowadays, I produce the podcast and write my blog, provide small business consulting, help regular folk start podcasts (or talk them out of it), write an opinion column in my local paper, try to figure out ways to pay the mortgage each month, spend time in my garden, enjoy living a block from Lake Michigan (very distracting), keep up with my 17 year old daughter and enjoy my husband who has yet to turn 50.
Please tell your friends about Experience 50, especially the ones who look like deer staring at the headlights of an oncoming car. They’ll thank you!