'I'm nowhere near ready to retire.' 6 things I really wasn't expecting in my 50s.

Every decade has a vibe. When I was younger, being in your 50s seemed to have a bland one. It was an age where heated rollers and sensible shoes made an appearance, and all manner of beige underwear and flowery dresses seemed the norm. You settled into cozy arm chairs in the evenings as you sipped your wine or cup of tea, or perhaps had a Bex and a good lie down after a particularly big day.

However, my own mother went on to buck the system and headed off to uni during that time of her life, reinvented in a trendy pair of jeans and a very Princess Di blow-wave. Maybe that's when reinvention all started for me too.

Certainly by the time I got to my 50s, there wasn't a hot roller in sight (although I have heard they're making a comeback) and I wasn’t quite sure how to 'do' 50 in the 2020s.

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Turning the big five-oh is likely confronting for most people, although I think I felt it a bit more keenly than most because my adult life had always been lived ‘young’. Now that sounds a little odd, I know, but this is how it panned out:

To start with, I kind of lost a decade by spending my 20s having a total blast: work, party, travel, repeat. It wasn’t until my 30s that I decided to start adulting properly, emulating my intrepid mother by enrolling in that degree I’d been putting off for twelve years. Oh, and getting married, buying a house and having kids while I worked five part-time jobs. As you do. 

Then my 40s hit and I decided I should probably get started on what I really wanted career-wise and wrote a book in my ‘spare time’ - think crazy woman squinting at the computer screen at 3am. Next thing I knew I was a first-time published author, so then I wrote another, then another. 

It never occurred to me that any of these choices were unusual for my age. I just wanted to pack in everything I wanted to do into my life. Live fast, suck the marrow, 40 is the new 30 anyway. That sort of thing.

So along came my 50th birthday. That seemed a bit daunting, so I decided to defy the occasion somewhat, losing 25kgs and wearing an age-inappropriate dress to my great big party, not so much to feel younger, just to keep feeling like me. And I do. I’m totally ‘me’ still, just an accumulative version. So it’s come as a bit of a shock to hear my friends start talking about retirement. Aren’t we only just getting started here? I don’t feel any different to that busy, reinventive woman I’ve always been... do I?

And yet, somehow I’m suddenly almost old enough for an 'over 55s' village, and I haven’t been this hormonal since I was 13. The years have passed, whether I’ve noticed them or not, and the not-so-magic mirror on the wall is starting to show evidence, of them all. My ‘live life young’ existence is undergoing some twists and turns in my 50s and here are a few I totally didn’t see coming:

Image: Supplied.

1. WTF periods. 

Okay, at 54 I still get them every month which my friends gape at in shock. I find myself wavering between feeling like a freak and feeling irrationally smug over this fact, but I’m not delusional. I know I’m ageing with the rest. Menopause has multiple personalities. It seems she is puberty’s mad and much less popular older cousin, revealing each incarnation as she sees fit and usually at the worst possible time. Hot flushes before we go on that tropical holiday? Don’t mind if I do, says she. 

But back to periods. Yes, I do still get them regularly, yet they too have so many personalities. I never know who might turn up: Shy Miss Two-Day? Mrs Totally-Pissed-off-the-Entire Week? Ms Not-Sure-If-I’m-Showing-Up-Today-Or-Not, or my personal nemesis, Mrs Surprise! Really, periods were once such reliable house guests. Turning up whenever you hormonally feel like it is just plain rude, if you ask me.

2. I've been sexually 'zoned'. 

Aside from menopause and the fact that your body is slowly beginning to reject youth like it’s allergic to estrogen, here’s another weird development that’s surprised me in my 50s. One day you’re an average woman, walking along and occasionally getting a look from a guy or giving one back, then the next there’s a zone around you, like police tape flapping in the breeze saying ‘warning: middle-aged’. (Although we aren’t really ‘middle-aged’, as my friend helpfully pointed out. We’re too old for the term. Great.)

Young fellas avoid eye contact because you’re old enough to be their mum and you’re fine about that because you are, men your own age might give you the odd smile but keep their distance because you’re likely an old married woman and you are, and then there’s the strangest zone of all, the one applied, or not applied, by older men. 

They may look like grand-dads, because they often are, but they sometimes see you as young hot tottie. Which you’re not. But it’s nice to be noticed. Even if he does have very little hair and a hearing aid. Weird how that doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore, either.

3. Am I fashionable or mutton?

Gone are the days when fashion choices were made purely on whether they suited my body shape or colouring, now I have to consider if I look like mutton-dressed-up-as-lamb or not as well. I was a late convert to this whole concept, pooh-poohing the idea that there was an age limit to wearing a mini-skirt or bikini or anything else if you so wanted, my dress at my 50th a case in point. 

And yet, a recent foray into purchasing and wearing a short, tiered ‘rah-rah’ skirt with little Fluro flowers on it changed all that. I liked that it reminded me of skirts we wore back in the 80s, however my teenage sons looked quite horrified when I walked out. An honest look in the mirror had me asking myself ‘what have you come as?’ aka Kath and Kim. There are fashion limits, I now have to concede. And I suppose you really shouldn’t start wearing Fluro again, forty years on.

Image: Supplied

4. Use-by-dates. 

I wasn’t kidding when I said I still feel like ‘me’, however there are days when I seem to have morphed into a far older model. My body is starting to feel decidedly well ‘used’ at times. There are inexplicable aches in peculiar places, my knee has a weird click and yes, rogue hairs appear on my chin like albino pubes. What’s that about? 

I swear actual use-by dates have shrunk too and no, I don’t need glasses. If I got them I might be able to see my face properly and seriously consider Botox but that ship has likely sailed. Time to grow old gracefully like our fore-mothers, or blurrily and not know the diff. Besides, my hubby walks around with his glasses on his head and says he can’t find them and I don’t want to look ridiculous or anything. Mind you, I did see someone wearing ones the other day that had Fluro rims…

5. 50 really is the new 40. Even 30. What the...?

Speaking of Botox, when did that become part of casual conversation? ‘Oh, I’m just off to pick up a few groceries and grab a quick Bobo on the way back.’ When my friend first said that I was horribly confused. Was she talking about a new type of latte? Sushi? Is it sushi? Is she getting a pet monkey? 

But no, turns out that’s just a hip word for injecting chemicals into your face to freeze time. Never mind aging gracefully, we modern 50-something’s are being urged to age hot. 

Pull off a pair of skinny jeans, screams social media, sport a tasteful tattoo, extend your lashes and hair and tone those child-bearing tummies in gym torture-chambers to appear like the-woman-formerly-known-as you. Good luck to anyone willing to give that a try but personally I’d rather just wear the age-inappropriate dress to the party and hope people are tipsy enough to fall for the illusion, then go home to the cozy chair and wine/tea. Or perhaps a Bex and a good lie down. Which brings me to this…

Listen to No Filter with Mia Freedman, who is joined in this episode by former Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Australia and author, Kirstie Clements. Story continues below.

6. OMG retirement. 

I may be loving the cozy chair but when it comes to the ‘R’ word?! I’m. Not. Ready. Worse than that I’m nowhere near ready. All of a sudden it’s just over ten years off and I’ve barely even started putting away for that torrential rainy day, let alone having reached the peak of my belated writing career and made millions from that rom-com with Hugh Jackman.

Aside from that, I love my home. I’ve had to fight many the ravenous mortgage beast to stay here in my cozy chair. I’m not prepared to sell it yet and buy a caravan with a kitchen the size of a postage stamp and become a grey nomad. I’m still recovering from my nomadic twenties... aren’t I? Oh wait. That’s 30 years ago. Gulp.

Well, I’m certainly not ready for an over 55s village. Mind you, I guess I would be a young hot tottie for a while. Tennis in a rah-rah skirt anyone?

Feature Image: Supplied.