It was my birthday, and oh yes, I wanted to cry about it.
I had big plans for my 50th year. I was going to Europe for the first time, to attend a writing retreat in Paris. (I’d already put down the deposit!) I was going to finish my memoir proposal and land a book deal. (I’d published a Modern Love essay and got my dream literary agent to represent me!) And I was going to celebrate the day itself with friends, somewhere far away from the gray November skies of New York City. Preferably someplace tropical. (We’d been talking about it for ages!) It was going to be great.
Instead, I spent 49 navigating crushing disappointments and unexpected family crises. When I couldn’t come up with the funds to follow through on the Paris trip, I told my friends it was probably a dumb idea in the first place, and I didn’t care about France. When my book proposal didn’t sell, I told them I hated writing anyway, and I was going to quit and find a new career. By November, the idea of going away for my birthday had withered, along with my enthusiasm for celebrating it.
When anyone dared to ask what I was doing for “the big 5-0,” I practically growled at them, snapping that I wasn’t going to do anything, and no one should do anything for me. I didn’t want a party. I didn’t want to go out to dinner. I didn’t want a cake. I wanted to be left alone. I was aware of how insufferable I was being, but I couldn’t seem to stop. I was mad. Mad at myself, mad at the world, and mad at anyone who tried to talk me down from my rage.
All my life, I’ve been an optimist. Looking on the bright side might as well be my brand. “There’s no such word as can’t!” I’m fond of chirping at my daughters. Whenever I hear someone use the term “toxic positivity,” I worry that they’re talking about me. Except I don’t really worry. I’m not a worrier. “Worrying is like praying for things you don’t want,” I always say, as if I’m some sort of unflappable sage. But 2025, the year that I, along with Gen X icons “Saturday Night Live” and Drew Barrymore, turned 50, managed to kick that BS right out of me.
What was it about turning 50 that was so daunting? The more I thought about it, the more I came face-to-face with my own ageism. Although I’d already stopped dating younger men, I was uncomfortably aware that while sleeping with 20-somethings when I was in my 40s felt sexy and cool, the idea of doing so in my 50s felt desperate and sad. A woman in her 40s is still fertile—at least, theoretically. Even if she’s not trying to get pregnant (and I definitely wasn’t), she’s perceived as sexually viable in a way that women in their 50s aren’t. Was that the sticking point for me? Or was it that my friends in their 50s had their lives more together than I did? They owned homes and contributed to retirement funds. They had decades-long marriages and were at the peak of their careers. Their lives seemed settled in a way that mine did not. They were adults. And staring down the barrel of 50, I was forced to accept that, however much I didn’t feel like one, I was too.
Maybe it’s because I had children so young. At 25, I was pregnant, and I imagined a very different life for myself than the one I ended up living. Being a wife and mother, I thought then, was the best thing a woman could be. The pinnacle of success. Whether my mother meant to raise me with that attitude or not, it’s what I took away from watching her cry over my father and hearing her tell me that he ruined her life when he left her. If a man doesn’t love you, you’re nothing. For a long time, that’s what I believed.
Determined to succeed where my mother had failed, I got married as fast as I could, had two babies, and didn’t bother with a career. I became a La Leche League leader, washed cloth diapers, and stocked our freezer with quarts of homemade chili. I made sure my husband and I went on date nights and had sex at least twice a week. I picked paint colors for our house and planted flowers out front. I was miserable, and I didn’t know why.
A quarter-century later, divorced and with an empty nest, it’s as if I’ve come out the other side of a tunnel—let’s call it the motherhood tunnel—and I’m standing in the light, blinking, wondering what the hell happened. I feel like the same person who went in, except now I’ve got arthritis and gray hair.
I love being a mom, but there are so many other things I want to do. Is it too late? Facing down 50, I’m increasingly aware that it might be. Bridget Everett, creator and star of one of my favorite TV shows, “Somebody Somewhere,” wears a necklace that says “DDHD.” Dreams don’t have deadlines. I want to believe that’s true, but I cannot stop thinking about the night my best friend died. He’d just turned 59; I thought we’d have so much more time together. “I want to go with you,” I’d said to him that night, my head against his shoulder, his hand tangled in my hair. Sometimes, dreams do have deadlines.
November came, and my impending birthday loomed. I met my daughter for coffee, and she asked what my plans were. “I have the day off work, so we can hang out,” she said, smiling brightly. I made a face, and she sighed. “Come on, Mom. Don’t be a baby. Turning 50 is cool! Everyone’s doing it.” I laughed, and relented. We could do something, I said. But just us. No party! I still wanted to sulk, just a little bit. I wasn’t quite done being salty.
But a few days later, I watched “Come See Me In the Good Light,” the Oscar-nominated documentary about my favorite poet, Andrea Gibson, who died at 49. They’d wanted so badly to turn 50, I knew. And there I was, lucky enough to be about to do so, and being a total asshole about it. “I have a measly wrinkle collection compared to my end goal,” Andrea had written. My daughter was right. I needed to cut the crap.
Yes, as I write these words, an age spot on my hand keeps catching my eye—an age spot that wasn’t there a year ago. So what? I’m here. How can I be ungrateful? I haven’t published a book, but I have a byline in The New York Times. I don’t own a home, but I have a rent-stabilized apartment in the city I’ve dreamed of living in since I was a little girl. I’m not celebrating a silver wedding anniversary, but I am, perhaps improbably, deeply in love with a wonderful man. (A story for another day.) Remember when you wanted what you currently have? I think of that aphorism a lot lately. And I do remember.
Ultimately, the cure for my turning-50 blues turned out to be turning 50. Much as I dreaded it, the day arrived like any other. My daughter and I went to a movie while my boyfriend made an elaborate dinner, and when we got home, my ex-husband showed up with a bottle of wine. I hugged him, speechless, while my boyfriend and daughter beamed, pleased to have pulled off a surprise. After dinner, my boyfriend brought out a gluten-free lemon cake he’d baked, ablaze with candles. Another surprise.
I was surrounded by people who love me. People I love. As I made a wish and blew, my anxiety about turning 50 flickered out along with the flames. I’m going to Paris in the spring, for real this time. I’m kicking around ideas for a new book proposal. And who says I can’t take a fabulous trip to someplace tropical on my 51st birthday, or my 55th, or my 60th? Why does it have to be on a birthday at all? I can do it whenever I want. Every day is a reason to celebrate. Oh yes—there’s that glass-half-full girl again. Like Sally O’Malley, she’s 50, and she’s ready for the next half-century.
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Elizabeth Laura Nelson has been airing her dirty laundry online since she wrote an “It Happened To Me” story for the late, great xoJane. Since then she’s worked at websites including YourTango, Elite Daily, Woman’s World, and Best Life. When she was 12, she kissed the George Michael poster above her bed every night before she went to sleep.
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