On Turning 50
I’m going to be 50 years old this year.
For the longest time as a kid I thought that my grandparents were 55 years old. I must have asked their age once and then believed that grandparents are always 55 years old.
But as I approach 50, I’m far from being a grandparent. I never had kids or got married — a fact I think my Gramma and Grampa Hopkins, as well as my mom’s mom, Gramma Maxwell, had come to terms with by the time they left this earth. (Grampa Maxwell died when I was a toddler so he never had reason to doubt.) Regardless, they loved me even if I wasn’t a procreator and never nabbed myself a husband.
I must have asked their age once and then believed that grandparents are always 55 years old.
Times were different when they were coming up. My dad’s parents, Tom and Irene, were childhood sweethearts who met in a South Dakota hospital where she was a candy striper and he’d had his appendix out . He tied her apron strings to the bed so she wouldn’t leave.
Until the day she died, she had the same kind of “oh, YOU! … stop THAT!” look of a girl in love with a mischievous boy.
My mom’s mom, Mary, was divorced and had two little ones when she met widower Harold in a dance hall in Vermillion, So.Dak., and revived his hope of raising a family on the farm he himself had grown up on.
But by the 1990s and early 2000s, the truth was that women didn’t need to get married in order to survive anymore. So I didn’t.
But by the 1990s and early 2000s, the truth was that women didn’t need to get married in order to survive anymore. So I didn’t.
My parents were living in an ashram in Omaha when I came into being. They were vegetarian, meditating, New Age spiritual seekers. Friends of theirs who were having a baby around the same time planned to name their newborn “Springborn in a Meadow.” Since I would be born at home (they thought), Dad joked that my name should be Fallborn on a Beanbag.
Then I worked a bunch of jobs. The end.
I was the first in my immediate family to graduate college. My dad did “his college year” as he calls it at the University of South Dakota in the mid-’70s before deciding that his education would come from the world instead.
Mom’s primary school education was straight out of Little House on the Prairie — a one-room schoolhouse with a single teacher (the beloved Mrs. Knapp) teaching every youngin’ from kindergarten to grade 8 simultaneously. While my mom greatly enjoyed her early schooling, she felt unprepared for high school, let alone college.
The story of my career is, basically, I got my bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1999. Then I worked a bunch of jobs. The end.
Despite contributing my brain power to hundreds (nay, thousands!) of pieces of content as a writer, editor, project manager, web editor, marketing manager, copywriter, managing editor, and even the great editor-in-chief, I can find very little evidence of my efforts.
Because I’d spent my whole career people-pleasing and chasing the approval of higher-ups, I ended up working myself into the ground but not feeling successful at all.
It’s not that I felt unappreciated. My employers have been pretty generous with benefits and raises. I got a 9% raise once, but somehow that doesn’t end up being all that much more money per paycheck.
I ended up working myself into the ground but not feeling successful at all.
By the time I left my job Iast June I was mentally and emotionally fried. I haven’t tried very hard to find work. I just couldn’t.
I felt like Peter in Office Space when he’s asked about “missing a lot of work” lately and he replies: “I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob.”
So, I decided to take some money out of my retirement savings (which every financial advisor will tell you never to do), and I moved back in with my mom.
It’s hard to feel super confident when you’re a single, 49-year-old, unemployed “writer” living in her mom’s attic.
What must “people” think? I imagined that everyone was judging me. I felt like my old friends pitied me. But I was also completely burned out and the idea of social interaction was too much. I turned inward, focused on self-care, spent a lot of time just feeling my feelings.
I put very few rules or expectations on myself. I ate what I wanted, watched what I wanted, jammed out to my tunes, did a bunch of restorative yoga, listened to hours upon hours of chakra-cleansing music, and basically took it real, real easy.
A few months ago when I decided I actually, probably, needed a job, I began half-heartedly sending applications and the occasional pitch, but no one was biting. And then I was suddenly staring down the barrel of another freakin’ holiday season without a job, home, or significant other. I decided to take a leap of faith.
It’s hard to feel super confident when you’re a single, 49-year-old, unemployed “writer” living in her mom’s attic.
My high school best friend, Hari, had been in Europe off-and-on since the pandemic, and we had been talking for years about meeting up in London.
She was going to be there for the first couple months of 2025, so I just did it: I bought a plane ticket to London, Eng-a-land!
I had a gut feeling about it. Even though money would be tight and I’d have nothing but credit cards when I got there, I decided that just being in Europe would somehow alter my DNA.
I expected the journey itself would unlock the key to whatever I am supposed to do next, in this, my 50th year of life. So, yeah. I went to frickin’ Europe. If you’re interested in that, here are some of my Tips for Travelers.
And it did change me. I feel like a different person. Suddenly, I am fearless.
Now that I’m home and over the jet lag, I had the idea for Turning 50 in 2025. Throughout this year, I am going to write love letters to the people, places, and ideas that have sustained me, not just in these last few difficult years, but all the way back to the beginning.
To my fellow Gen Xers born in 1975, whether you’re a grandparent or not, whether you did what was expected of you or not, whether you feel successful or not, I am here to celebrate you.