I Was Not Properly Prepared for Life as a 50 Year Old Woman
What I wish someone had told my young self
A few months ago, with much excitement, I turned fifty. But my experience of this amazing milestone has not aligned with the cultural narrative I received in the years leading up to this point. To be blunt: what I was told would happen, didn’t. There are things I wish someone had warned me about in advance. I’m going to lay my experiences out, covering the myths, the surprises and the shocks of getting old. I have a few grievances to air with Mother Nature. There will be some advice along the way, for any women open to hearing it.
Baggage
Ever since I was a teen, I heard constant messages from the media and people around me that men are turned off by women with their own baggage. I have learned over and over, decade after decade, they bloody well are not.
The reality? There are certain men who deliberately seek out women and girls with baggage. As a woman with complex post traumatic stress disorder, I can speak on this subject with confidence. You see, I had trauma in bucket loads long before I started my first day of school.
A troubled 16-year-old? Perfect. An alcoholic 23-year-old? Easy prey. A 40-plus year old woman? Even easier. Plenty of men believe a woman 40 or older will be so grateful for any attention from a man, that she’ll do whatever the guy wants.
When men complain about ‘baggage’ and avoid certain women, they’re not necessarily talking about trauma or mental health issues. They’re afraid of women with life experience who have woken up to men’s bullshit. Women who have done the work to protect themselves from such men. It’s the sanest, most self-aware and well-adjusted women being labelled as having ‘baggage.’
Older men preferring much younger women or girls
In my 40s, I began to hear men in the manosphere complaining about women my age. Lots of old men, after being rejected by young women in their early 20s, come to women my age to blame us for these rejections! They call us ‘jealous Karens.’ They accuse us of telling young women to avoid them. I can only laugh. I live with three gen-Z offspring, and let me tell you: they are not messing around with this age gap shit. Old women don’t need to tell young women shit about this topic.
I have never known a generation as disgusted by age gap relationships as gen Z. Good for them! The only dog I have in this fight is the safety of my children, and others their age. Most of them already have strong opinions about it, and I guess this makes old men sad. The target always feels the strongest about it, don’t they? I remember being repulsed by old men at that age, too.
Wrinkles, grey hair and hormones
Wrinkles and greys? Not the end of the world, as I was told it would be. I think my greys are beautiful. I have a basic, science-based skincare routine. I don’t like my wrinkles. If my skincare prevents more coming along for a while, that’s great. Either way, I accept their existence, and refuse to let some wrinkles ruin my day.
My attitude is this: it’s not a crime to look old. How any woman deals with her ageing appearance, be it by using different procedures or doing nothing, is her business. Bodily autonomy matters just as much when we’re old. We don’t owe it to anyone to age ‘gracefully,’ ‘naturally,’ or otherwise. In my 40s, I developed my own personal beauty boundaries, and it has been freeing. I encourage all women to create their own boundaries, too. I can talk about this more in the future, if anyone is interested in a deeper discussion.
I’m unimpressed about menopause. I’m excited to get to the end of it, but I wasn’t educated about it beforehand, to my own detriment. No one told me that when the hormones hit, it’s like being injected with a drug that makes you have suicidal thoughts without your consent. Thankfully, I don’t have that symptom anymore. No one told me that my boobs would keep growing bigger and bigger, despite no longer needing to nurse an infant. What in the actual fuck? Why couldn’t Mother Nature make them fall off instead?
Invisibility vs respect
I hear a lot of people talking about women becoming “invisible” at 40. What’s lacking in this discourse is nuance. Yes, I don’t get catcalled as often. Unfortunately, it still happens on occasion. Catcalling was only ever amusing to me when I was a child, and didn’t have a full understanding of what was going on.
By the time I turned 18, I’d learned the hard way that this behaviour is far from a compliment. In reality, catcalling is always about disrespect, and often intimidation. When I am catcalled as a 50-year-old, it does not give me an ego boost; it gets my guard up. I do not engage with the perpetrator. I pick up my pace. I text my loved ones information about where I am and what is happening. I’ve noticed on my night-time walks at this age, that some men think it’s funny to bang loudly on a fence or corflute, and wait for my reaction. I refuse to give them one. What’s funnier than frightening a little old lady, am I right?
Despite all this nonsense, I’ve discovered I’m not invisible at all. I’m treated with more respect by others, most of the time in the real world. Most people are nicer to me, these days, and it’s really lovely. I remind people of their mothers, I suppose? A couple of years ago on twitter, I had a realisation that broke my heart. A man who must have been 20 years older than me, politely asked to meet up with me. Of course, I declined. He was a little insistent that he hoped I’d reconsider later down the track. Wanting to know what his deal was, I checked out his profile to gauge his interactions with other women.
I was horrified to see him speaking to women in their young 20s in the most disgusting, degrading way. To be clear, these women were not sex workers, just regular, pretty women. I remembered being in my 20s. Remembered being spoken to in this way constantly by men. This experience made me realise that too many men think this is what young women are there for: to degrade and objectify. I realised he wouldn’t dare speak to me in that way, specifically because of my age.
Am I more deserving of respect and dignity than those young women? Nope. But I believe women hit a point when we don’t stand for this treatment from men, and I guess this old fart knew I’d long hit that point at my age. And it’s not that young women allow themselves to be treated this way. It’s that it’s so constant and exhausting, that if the young versions of us called it out every time it happened, that’s all we would spend our time doing. At that age, you simply come to expect it. You learn and accept that this is how lots of men are.
And you know what? That’s not okay. We should not need to wait until we’re almost fifty fucking years old for men to stop speaking to us so disrespectfully. If any young women are reading this, I hope this is the part you take most to heart. This awareness of the difference in respect levels as we get older. Because I can tell you, at your age, I had no idea how much men pull themselves into line when they speak to an older woman. If I had known, I would have hit that point of not standing for it at a much younger age.
When men say they don’t like women with ‘baggage,’ this is what they’re talking about. They don’t want a woman who has learned to stand up for herself. Or one they feel a need to be polite to, or make an effort for. This is not baggage. That is power. Those men don’t like women with power.
One of the greatest tools I’ve seen evolve since 1973 (when I was born) is the internet. Women can compare notes now, and act accordingly. Everyday, we’re waking up to the bullshit just that little bit more. I know the manosphere is frightening to women, and that is why so many are simply checking out of dating. But don’t look away from the manosphere. Use every self-damning word these men say to learn how to protect yourselves. They’re showing us their arses, now. Believe them. Look out for each other. Now that we have the internet, every single one of us can get a copy of Why Does He Do That?, for free. Read it. Apply it to your lives. Share it with your sisterhood. Galvanise yourself against future abuse.
Number of sexual partners
All my life, I heard about what a ‘gift’ virginity is, and how important it was not to have too high of a number of partners in your sexual history. You know how it goes. You’re dirty, used, no man will want you for long term commitment or having kids, blah, blah, blah…
At fifty, I can tell you it’s bullshit. I don’t tell anyone ‘my number,’ because it’s no one else’s business. But I will say my number would make a good Christian wife gasp, and the most kinky, sex positive woman say, ‘is that all?’ If you are a virgin and that’s what a man likes most about you: run! A man who is worth being with won’t give your number of sexual partners a second thought. He probably won’t ask, because he doesn’t care. There are plenty of cool guys out there who couldn’t give a shit. I am in a long term relationship with one myself, and we have three children together.
In my past, I’ve had exactly the amount of sex I wanted to have, and I’m pleased as punch about it. I still got the guy, the house, the kids, everything I wanted. You might as well do what you want. Just be safe. Men broadcast all these preferences, such as no body hair, minimal sexual history, no makeup, etc. But we’re not short order cooks, waiting around to take notes on what men like. And honestly? Most men are just happy to be there with you. They will take what they can get, and be happy with it, or not.
Friendships
I have learned in the past decade how important friendships are. But more importantly, I’ve learned that friendship is a two-way street, and if the other person isn’t making an effort, then it’s time to walk away. As the saying goes, ‘if you want a friend, be a friend.’ Too often we hold ourselves to that standard, but not the other party. Once I started doing that, I had better friendships with less frustration.
Pain
I made a big mistake in my 30s and early to mid 40s: I dismissed my pain. From the time I gave birth to my son at 32, I began to have severe joint pain and stiffness in the mornings, that lasted longer than half an hour. People in online forums told me to get checked for rheumatoid arthritis. I had the blood test; it came back negative. Happy to hear I didn’t have that condition, I went about my days, still in unbearable pain. My doctor had no curiosity whatsoever about the actual reason for that pain.
As time went on, I decided it must be happening because I was getting older. That’s what we do when we get old. We blame so many things on getting old, that we often don’t take our aches and pains seriously. In time, I began to notice the people around me; my age and older. They were doing lots of things I couldn’t. They weren’t struggling to lift a teacup, or to get their daily chores done, as I was.
None of us have ever been old before. If you believe your struggles are ‘normal’ for your age, challenge yourself. Look at your peers. Is this really an age thing, or should you get yourself looked at?
It turns out my pains have nothing to do with old age. I have psoriatic arthritis, an autoimmune disease that can affect people of all ages. We don’t need to accept feeling like crap, just because we’re old.
After learning so much, I feel great about turning 50. Things make more sense now than ever before. I wonder what I’ll learn next? I’m privileged to have the opportunity to find out. I look to gen Z and gen Alpha, and have been hearing about their fears of ageing. This saddens me, because I wish they would choose to enjoy their youth as thoroughly as I did. I worry about them, because with this mindset, how will they cope when/if they reach actual old age? I want better for future generations than that.
I’ll share the way I dealt with the thought of ageing when I was young. At 15 or 16, I read a book from the school library by Jackie Collins. I can’t remember the book’s name, but one character was watching a young, glamorous, bombshell of a woman. And he thought to himself something like, ‘what are you going to do when your tits drop?’
Teenage me sat with this thought. My tits were great! Round, full, high, perky. They stayed this way for many years. But teenage me sitting in the public school library, decided to enjoy my youth. To relish in my beauty, enhance and celebrate it. But most of all, I made sure that I always had a lot more going for me than my looks. That’s how I came to grips with ageing, before it finally happened.
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