I Just Turned 47 and Realized I Don’t Have Another Second to Waste

As I stare down the barrel of 50, everything has a new sense of urgency

What happened to me? Just a few weeks before I turned 47, it felt like a switch flipped inside me. Maybe it was the prior two months of family stress and immense fear over my nephew’s surgery. But honestly, I don’t think so.

I simply remember having the sudden realization that I was about to enter my late forties. Hell, maybe 46 was already there. But three years to 50 felt even more significant.

Let’s face it — though the human lifespan isn’t exactly short, not many of us will make it to 100. Which means I’m likely already past the halfway point of my life. And what’s left of it includes tender knees, an achy back, and lungs that never quite bounced back after Covid.

In other words: time never felt so precious. So short. I have to outrun this aging body and try to check off the items on my bucket list in a decade or two.

There’s no time to spare!

It’s alarming to me to look back on my youth and realize how much time I wasted. I know you might be tempted to reassure me, to assert that I didn’t waste anything, that everything ended up meaning something.

Well, I’m sorry to inform you — believe me, I am — that I really, truly did waste time.

You see, I was always waiting for something or someone to get things started. Sure, I was pretty proactive when it came to my writing. I regularly worked on my craft and reached out to magazines and publishers, hoping to catch an opportunity.

But every other part of my life felt confusing and overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t even know I could do or start something.

I was waiting for someone to help me decide if I should pursue writing or “be responsible” and get a teaching degree. I was waiting for just the right friends who would make me feel like a capable, accomplished person. I was waiting for a knight in shining armor to sweep me off my feet, heal my romantic and sexual trauma, and make babies with me.

Unlike many of my peers, I didn’t expect it to happen right away. I honestly didn’t really feel like I was entitled to much in my twenties. I felt that I had to earn all that stuff with experience, wisdom, and the years that would cultivate those qualities.

So I waited. And not just waited — I threw time right out the window, having no true understanding of my wastefulness.

I can tell some of you are still ready to rush in with reassurances, but no, please. Believe me when I say I wasted time.

Folks, I can’t tell you how many hours I spent playing Solitaire on my computer. Work? Sleep? Writing? Socializing? Who needed that?! I had cards to sort!

And then for a while, Free Cell became my thing. I doodled. Rearranged my room only to put it back in its original configuration by the end of the day. And I watched countless reruns of Martha Stewart that I’d recorded in the previous years.

Sure, there were times when I surged forward, despite my best attempts to fritter away the hours. For a time, I chose to pursue writing in college and moved out to Santa Fe to get my degree. And then I wasted all my time pursuing boys, instead, and had to give up and move back to the Pacific Northwest when I ran out of money.

Sure, I changed course and pursued teaching once I moved back home, and even finished my master’s degree. But sometimes I even wonder if that was a waste of time, considering how miserable it made me, considering the fact that I only did it because everyone seemed to think I should.

And sure, that “knight in shining armor” even came along when I was 31, and we moved in together and talked about how amazing our life was going to be when we were married and had kids, but then he began emotionally withdrawing, postponing our plans again and again, and I eventually started filling every spare moment with Bubble Witch Saga, trying to drown my sorrows in endless hours of virtual bubble-popping.

Those years of time wasting were, perhaps, the worst of all. I was simply waiting. Waiting for him to be ready. And so I constantly searched for everything I could do to wile away the time until he was.

I rearranged our living room dozens of times. I organized and re-organized our closet so often, it became one of his pet peeves. I vacuumed obsessively. Made curtains and slipcovers for every window and piece of furniture in the house. Took up canning, even though it didn’t really interest me. And I created a menu plan so elaborate, you’d have thought we were a household of ten, not two.

And then there’s perhaps the worst “waste” of all: the months and months of eggs that washed away with every period. The mother who lost her opportunity to be a mother when Reluctant Boyfriend moved out to be with his new girlfriend.

Dear god, the wasted time in my past sometimes crashes into me like a tidal wave.

Do you know what happens to women in their forties? They get divorced and then get a new boyfriend. They get remarried, and/or start a new family.

Well, not all of them. I have definitely not done well in that department, though that’s not something that grieves me.

What grieves me is how goddamn busy everyone is. Again. I waited twenty-some years for my friends to finish raising their kids so we could hang out and enjoy ourselves without always having to talk about diapers and breastfeeding and soccer practice and report cards.

Sadly, I’ve discovered that’s not at all what was in store for me. Now we’re back to Square One. Everyone’s in the honeymoon phase of their new relationships or in the early stages of motherhood. Again.

When I try to make plans with friends these days, there’s so much time spent just on making the plan — and often a plan that’s canceled at the last minute, anyways. Talk about a waste of time.

And ever since last month, when I experienced this shift that I think might be permanent, I’m just fully over it all. I don’t have time to fuss around with all this stuff! Just tell me yes or no and let me move on with my life!

And when they say no, can you guess what I do? I go and do the thing anyways! Because I’m done wasting time.

Ever since I started hiking by myself last month, thanks to all my busy friends who are too busy to show up these days, I’ve become increasingly aware of the time I’ve wasted in my life waiting for people to show up. Waiting for people to want to do stuff with me. Waiting for people to want to hang out or build a life with me.

I legitimately don’t care anymore. I’m not mad at anyone. But I am increasingly aware of how happy they are in the lives they have intentionally and purposefully chosen for themselves. They weren’t sitting around waiting for me or anyone else.

And I’m not willing to wait around for them or anyone else, anymore. Did you hear me? I’m three years from 50! There isn’t time!

I’ve become obsessed with watching videos of people living in their vans or building off-grid cabins on YouTube. They’re not wasting time. They’re not waiting around for anyone.

I even did something wild today: I renewed my passport. I suppose renewing it is not the wild part — it feels safe to me to always have a valid passport on hand. But I’m actually thinking about using it. Me. The lady who is terrified of flying — especially over oceans.

But I don’t have time to be afraid anymore. Or time to waste on fear, you might say. This is it! This is all that’s left.

I look back at my twenties and the young woman who was too afraid to pursue her writing in college and who gave it up for a career she didn’t even want. I look back at my thirties and the young woman who was too afraid to leave a man who always had one foot out of their relationship and therefore, lost her chance to become a mother.

I am stunned with heartbreak for the time I wasted. It feels like an electric shock big enough to knock me off my feet.

I can’t let another decade go by in waste. Hell, I can’t afford to lose another day.

There’s so much to do. And I already missed out on so much.

Thank god for 50 on the horizon, because I’m not going to miss one more thing…

© Yael Wolfe 2023

Yael Wolfe is a writer, artist, and photographer. You can find more of her work at yaelwolfe.com. If you want to support my writing, consider using my affiliate link to purchase a Medium membership, or tip me over at Ko-fi.

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