I'll start by listing the things I thought would be true by the time I was 50, and what I thought 50 would look and feel like.

1) I'd have at least one, but probably two kids.  And they'd be college aged.

2) I'd have a really exciting and successful career as an actor, or artist, or something creative.

3) I'd look old.  Feel tired.  Grey hair, etc.  Hoped I wouldn't be fat.

4) I'd own a home and a car and be financially stable.  Hopefully even well-off.

5) I'd be married.  To the father of above-mentioned kids.


And how does my life at 48 look compared to my expectations?

1) No kids. Sill ambivalent about that.  Although, really, ambivalence is a choice in the end, isn't it?  That's a big suitcase to unpack, for sure!

2) Not an exciting and creative career.  But I do have a job.  The same job for 9 years, so I guess it could be considered a career.  But it's not my life's calling, for sure.  Ooh.  Unpack that:  Life Calling.  Life is Calling, will you answer? Hello, this is Life calling?  Are you there?

3) I don't think I look "old".  I definitely don't look like I'm 24 - but I don't look like what I (still) feel 50 looks like.  I'm not fat.  I think I look pretty great, actually.  For 48. For any age. Still, would love to have the boundless energy and tiny boobies of my 24 year old self.

4) I do own a home.  Actually, my husband owns it.  He pays the mortgage.  And pretty much everything else.  So yeah, financially stable - but not independently so.  Would definitely not have what I have if it were not for Tom.  Or would I?....another unpack-able piece of baggage.

5) Married.  Twice.  Three times if you count Adam, which I kind of do since he was such a big part of my life.  Three is a charm, as they say.  Tom is the final one.  The one I plan to stick with on the forever-plan.  But we don't have kids.  So, there's a bit of "what if" regret there.  More unpacking to do.

I've done a pretty good job of packing, I'd say! Lots of stuff packed nice and tight and kind of all tangled up, too.  Which means a whole helluva lot of laundry to do.

48 and a half and counting.

Okay, so here's the thing.  I'm 48 and a half years old.  Yup, I'm counting that half.  Because it means that I'm just a year and a half away from 50.

I don't feel like I'm what I thought 50 would be when I was half my age.  I feel like what I think I remember feeling like at half my age.  Except that there's a lot more history there.  And a lot more "what if's".  I've spent over a decade worrying about what I should DO with my life, instead of actually DOING it, and so have come up with a lot of "what if's".  I won't go in to all of them, they're too numerous to count.  But the point is, the only thing that lives up to what my expectations of what 50 would feel like is....all of the "what if's".  Or, put another way, regrets.

At 24 and a quarter years old, I was determined to live life with no regrets.  And I remember feeling sorry for all of those 50 year old women who seemed so down-trodden, flabby, dream-unfulfilled, soccer-tired, boring....I could go on.  You get the point.  I didn't want to be one of "those" women.  And I'm not.  Mostly.  I don't fit the image of what I thought 50 should, or would, look like.  But I have regrets.  I wish I'd done this or that. Had been more this or that. Less that or this.  Or, whatever.

But I had a dream last night where I was with some of my old friends from high school.  Judsy, Alan, etc.  In it, I was telling them that I didn't really care anymore what other people thought, and that was the key to freedom.  To letting go.  Fulfillment.  Happiness?  And in it, I felt so alive and in the moment.  And, of course, was totally in to fucking Judsy.  What?  Why does THAT happen?  Have a sexy dream about someone you haven't seen in a hundred years and then can't get them out of your head for days.  Very distracting.

But I digress.  I guess what I'm getting at is that all of those expectations from my younger self I've let turn into "what if's" that have, in turn, morphed into regrets.  And I need to let go of those expectations.  In letting go, I feel sexy and alive - and WAY younger than what I ever thought 50 should feel like.

The task at hand, then, is to let go.  The question is....how?

So this is a place where I am examining what it means to be nearly 50, and not nearly where I thought I should be, and learning to be okay with that.  I am probably not the only woman who has felt this way.

To be continued, for sure...