7 habits making my 50s the best decade (so far!)

It's the "ME" era I've been waiting for. Plus: a c***y blazer for spring.

Me in the Clown Car (can you see the dog with his tongue hanging out stuffed in the back?).

Hi Midlifers!

How was your week? My regular work-week was interrupted by a dog with tummy trouble. I came home from the office around dinnertime on Tuesday night to find — despite a dog walker having been there earlier that afternoon — a true nightmare waiting for me on my sisal rug. Like, imagine the worst scenario, and then double it. Triple it, maybe even. I don’t know what he got into but things were coming out both ends of the guy for a full day and we wound up at the vet on Thursday where he got an infusion of fluid and some pricey kibble so he could start eating again without barfing.

Then on Friday afternoon, we had a follow up appointment with the doggy dermatologist about 40 minutes from my home where I waited for almost two hours in a crowded animal hospital waiting room (read: my goldendoodle repeatedly growling at any and all perceived threats) to learn he still had bacteria on the outside of his belly (and maybe his paws?) and now he’s back on antibiotics.

$500 later, he seems a lot better. The joke is, I don’t think I ever gave of my actual four children’s medical issues this kind of attention. Frankly back then, I didn’t have the bandwidth. When my one daughter, who suffered unaddressed severe allergies as a child, heard that I was going to start immunotherapy for our dog, she was like, “Wait, what?”

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Having the kind of life that allows me to address ancillary concerns and not just nuclear meltdowns has been one of the many gifts I have received as I have moved through my 50s. Of course many things have contributed to this, including getting four kids out to the door to college and launching three of them into their adult lives. Untethering myself financially from their dad also helped stabilize my life. It feels good to be a financially independent mothafucka.

This week in all my Substack scrolling, I ran across a list of habits from a writer I am obsessed with really like (

Joanna Goddard

— follow her right now), that are making her 40s her best decade yet and I thought, “Oh, that’s cute,” because I really think your 50s is when things really start to turn around and get good. For me anyway.

9 Habits That Are Making My 40s My Favorite Decade

Turns out, she was inspired by another writer who shared habits making her 30s great, and I really appreciated both women’s optimism. I wonder if I had that back then.

These 11 Habits I Started After turning 30 Are Making My 30s the Best Decade Yet

I feel like your 30s are when you make all your mistakes. Your 40s are for dealing with them and sorting them out. And your 50s are when you can finally move forward.

But what do I know?

Now that I have moved into this calmer period of life, I’ve been able to focus on my own needs and figuring out who I am. What I want. What I need. And more importantly, how that impacts the people around me (hopefully, for the better!).

7 habits making my 50s the best decade (so far!)

Inspired by my younger counterparts, I put together my own list of habits that are making my 50s the best decade yet:

Sunrise in Avon this month.

1. Getting out in nature: I mean, this is no great revelation. But getting to walk out my front door and make the half mile trek to the boardwalk and look at the ocean (almost) every day for the last 2.5 years has been one of the greatest gifts I have received. Every day the water and the sky and the wind are so different and yet, always perfect. Yesterday I couldn’t think of a word to describe the way the sunlight hit the water — creamy? Gah, I don’t know but I do know that I felt it in my chest. That warm sun filling me. Before I lived here I used to walk in the woods all the time and that used to jazz me up, too. Also: birds. I love to hear them outside my window. Wrap up everything I just said and I think it’s knowing that I am just a small part in the greater order of things.

2. Focusing on gratitude: Honestly, my first reaction to the dog disaster I came home to after work this week wasn’t, “Poor me,” or “Bad dog.” It was: Thank god I didn’t step in it. It is truly a miracle I did not. The situation was directly in my path to the kitchen from the front door and it was only when I got there and put my bags down did I sniff and notice that something was amiss. So later, after consulting the internet and a lot of cleaning, I added “Not stepping in dog poop,” to my Jar of Good Things™. Being able to turn those internal narratives around has really made me a lot less resentful and able to find the good in a lot of things I wouldn’t have been able to 10 years earlier.

3. Saying “yes” to things that scare me: Recently, I gave a briefing about what’s going on in the labor market to ~90 colleagues, including my chief marketing officer. The specter of that pending date with destiny loomed over me for a few weeks. It woke me up at night. I was so scared and my imposter syndrome was at an ALL TIME HIGH. How would I ever match the expertise a former colleague would bring to the briefing? How would I ever fill her shoes? And then I realized: Those were not my shoes to fill. Instead, I remembered what my expertise was (news reporting), and that’s what I brought to my 30-minute briefing. Me, and not me pretending I was someone else. For about 48 hours after, I floated. It felt so good to do something that was so scary. It’s something I actively avoided as a younger woman. Now I see the value of getting out of my comfort zone and doing something terrifying. Life’s too short not to. Try it.

4. Developing multigenerational friendships: Recently, my coworkers and I had a good “That’s what she said,” laugh about something silly and one of them said, “I wish you were my mom,” and I thought, “No, no you really wouldn’t want to be having a ‘that’s what she said’ moment with your mom.” That’s why it’s fun to have friends of all ages. I’ve said it here before, but working with people predominantly in their 20s and 30s has just made me a better person AND a better mom. It helped that I had pretty good relationships with my kids who kept me up on things and also trained me on how not to be annoying to younger people. Highly recommend.

5. Growing as a human: I spend a lot of time and energy trying to be a better person for myself and especially, the people who have to deal with me. I meditate. I pray. I read recovery and spiritual literature. Sometimes poetry. I go to therapy once or twice a month. Recovery meetings. Listen to and read books and podcasts about being a better person. I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t want to keep growing, in every way. It would be so boring not to. Along the way, I am learning a ton about myself, too. I’m trying to love myself more and not look for it externally. Turns out, happiness is an inside job. Duh.

6. Quitting booze: I have found so much through working a recovery program (see above). But also, taking alcohol completely off the table has been a blessing for me. Number one, it freed up a lot of mental bandwidth I gave to drinking. Should I drink today? How much? Wine? A little cocktail? Is anyone ordering a second drink? Or a third? And then there were all the hangovers, so bad and constant that I used to rate them every day in my journal. LOL but really, not funny. For me, and the way my brain works, it’s better when I don’t have to make any of those decisions. Instead, I wake up at 5:00 almost every morning and sit in my bed with my mug of coffee in the dark and thank God I’m over the hump of all that.

7. (Still) sharing experiences as a family: Last year, I went to Disney World with my four grown kids and soon-to-be-daughter-in-law.

   It was amazing and it’s success was definitely built on the back of lot of therapy and recovery work a lot of us has done. It also was the equivalent of family group therapy and all of us working through some generational trauma standing on long lines and spinning around in the dark together in the dark as the horns from Earth, Wind and Fire’s September lifted our hair and our hearts. Listen, that trip could have gone either way and there were some tense moments at Epcot one night a few days in. But we prevailed and hopefully all can look back on and replicate what worked as we head to Europe together later this spring. Send prayers. But also, aren’t we lucky?

One of my very best girlfriends just turned 60 so apparently, a new decade is coming for us all. So far, she’s reported, there has been no bleeding crossing the threshold from 59 to 60. Just the regular aches and pains. She is feeling optimistic, which is all we can hope for as we move through this journey. And hopefully, lots of growth.

10 Powerful Habits of People Who Age Well

Are you ahead of me on the journey? Please share the habits making your 60s (or 70s / 80s!) your best yet!

One c***y blazer

This blazer from Uniqlo is who I want to be.

My work friend Jess has incredible style. Truly. Every week her outfits are always *chef’s kiss* Recently, she’s been sporting an amazing blazer she got from Abercrombie, but I was too cheap to buy it. My daughter and I took the bus to the Uniqlo in downtown Philadelphia this weekend where I bought a very similar blazer for about $40 less that I plan to bring to Paris. I tried it on for my daughter who said, “You look cunty.” Guys, what a win.

Hanging with (another) Amy

Driving home from Philly this weekend, my daughter and I listened to the new podcast from Amy Poehler, “Good Hang.” I am a huge fan, having listened to her book “Yes, please” with my kids on a drive to someone’s college something. Or something like that. The important part is that we loved her storytelling as much as we loved listening to her friend Tina Fey’s stories in “Bossypants.” It just so happens that the first episode of the podcast we listened to was an interview with Ms. Tina. Delightful.

Menopause and Weight: There is No Code to Crack

Dinner? Again?

If you, like me, struggle to find new and different (and healthy) things for dinner, I really liked a bunch of the recipes in this Substack post. Scroll down and you’ll find them toward the bottom. FYI I’ve (coincidentally) made the chipotle/chili honey chicken tacos a zillion times when I had people living at home and, yes, do yourself a favor and make the pickled onions to sprinkle on top.

A pretty good list for aging from @mindbodygreen

Guys, I’m getting fancy

How so? Because I figured out how to offer discounts on annual subscriptions to The Midlife Diaries. This week, I sent out our first ever Friday newsletter for subscribers, called The Weekend Log. The premier issue featured clothes I bought for Paris and my latest TV obsession. Want to get in on the fun and love a sale? I’m offering 20% off the annual rate through the end of the month. Just click the button below if you want to join.

I’m always just so tickled when I get a message that someone subscribed. It’s just so fun to find ways to hang with you all.

GAH, thank you for reading

I’m just so honored to have you read and follow along. If you have time, it would mean so much to me if you could “heart” this post, share your thoughts in the comments below or share with a friend and grow this community of Midlifers. Last week I bullied my coworkers into liking the post to try to get it to 50 but fell short (will muscle children next)! Let’s see if we can make it with this one! You guys are the best.