Table of Contents
We spent our first twenty years growing up.
Most of it we don’t even recall and much of what we experienced was not in our control. We spent the next twenty years traveling at light speed – marriage, kids, divorce, careers, pets, homes, disease – through more major life experiences than we could count.
Now, we are perched at the start of chapter two. Perhaps we won’t get another fifty years, but however many we do get, we’re determined to make the best of!
Let’s face it, as middies, we’re more in touch with our own mortality.
We’ve watched our children grow and move out as quickly as we’ve plucked, colored or embraced our gray hairs. Our careers have either flourished or faded and retirement age is quickly creeping up on us.
The pressure to achieve the one million goals we set for ourselves in our twenties is easing up. We realize now that so many of those grand plans are just not going to happen.
Depressing? Nope. It’s liberating!
We can now let go of the dreams that didn’t (and won’t) happen, the flat stomach we never achieved, the perfect marriage or home or kids that didn’t end up being so perfect – this is now our time for rebirth.
A chance to start over. Time for new dreams, goals, aspirations, and interests.
The focus with which we go after the dreams and goals we set now is laser sharp. We aren’t fooling around anymore thinking about someday. Those days have passed and we now have this day and all the days ahead of us.?
We can see more clearly what truly matters to us and we finally have the grace to let the rest of the baloney go.
The days of peer pressure and worrying about what they’ll say about us at the PTA meetings are thankfully behind us.
It’s time to shed the fears of putting ourselves out there and just go for it!
Stay out of our way! This second act (chapter) is all about us middies making sh*t happen.
About the author
Marlene Caraballo:
Designer by day, writer by night. Mom to three sons, and pet parent to Nutley. She blogs about life after fifty at cheers2chapter2.com.
originally posted September 24, 2018
updated April 26, 2022
