I don't know what is triggering the feelings either and have you thought about writing a gratitude and assets list that contains the ways you have grown and what you have achieved in 10 years - since your 40 birthday? Something on the order of here sits luv123, who turned 40 in June of 2004. On that 40th year anniversary date, luv...
the 10 year highlights, lessons and blessings you'd like to record? Then, following writing out that chapter of your life, you could always take yourself out with or without loved ones and friends to celebrate all you have achieved in 10 years time?  Then, maybe put what you want to do on a goal list for the next 10 years leaving room for a lot of surprises, too, and put that in your God box?

I turned 65 this year and so I've hit the 50 year mark about 15 years before you. I can remember feeling around that time as if I'd pretty much accomplished all that I'd wanted to do. My prayer was on the order of "God, if I've done all I've been meant to do in this lifetime, I'm ready to go home. If not, make it clear what you would have me do?" That was in January of the year I turned 50. I learned I was going to be a grandmother in November of that year. Never saw it coming. Glad it did. Never saw a purchase of a large structure and remodel of it for my non-profit work either. Never foresaw the project being totally paid off before my 55th birthday or a two month sabbatical that included a long vacation in San Francisco, a place I had longed to see for many years. Didn't see me ready for retirement or itching to free myself from some relationships and behaviors I had outgrown.

Celebrate your self, luv, and grieve if you must. I think that is all part of being alive and being human. Happy, happy birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Edited by grateful2be on Monday 2nd of June 2014 12:29:50 PM

THE BEST IS YET TO COME!

CELEBRATE YOU

hugs, fifty is a milestone. Now we are closer to 100 than ever before. I was told this is when a person will be more tired, more sensitive, your body really shows its wear. I poo pooed it. It is true for me.

I realize wow, I had my kids, got married, bought a house in the country, lived in a cabin, love my adult kids, done all the things i wanted to in my life.

now what? why are my arms looking weird, skin is funny. My knee hurts, fingers are hurting and they are bent, my hair has grey in it or it is all grey. Lets not talk about teeth.

men don't look at me anymore, they treat me with respect opening doors and can I help you. nice but....

geez I used to work on the place eight hours straight or more on a fence. I would paint one room in a day, two coats. Now I paint one side of the door and neet a nap.lol

well I am 61 now. My body doesn't seem weird anymore, have accepted it and its familiar. have grown, don't care what anyone thinks but hp. I will do what I am going to do. If i lose my home, I will drag a trailor around or have a camper, and yes my animals will go where I do. all of them.

I know where you are, it will get better believe me. I like feeling like hey I am old enough to be your great gma so don't give me any crap.lol

No my hair is not grey so there is one nice thing, my fat makes me soft, fills out most wrinkles...i am not fat not skinny, I like me.

A's? well I love them like I love every human. have great compassion, ignore the bs, givem a dollar at least. listen to them, think this is someones child, husband, wife, mother, father etc.

anyway my dear there is my experience! yep always carry a hankie like our moms and gmas did! crying is good not bad. never apologize for it.

hugs again

I have been meaning to thank you for that lovely bunch of suggestions--glad to hear of your post 50 wonders in live!!! Also glad for validation that grief and sadness and happiness etc are all just part of life' process.  Hope u are well!!! Luv123

(((luv))) One suggestion for the next 10 years - stay away from folks who visit their doctors regularly. One of the things I noticed after I reached 50 was the number of people in my company whose conversation always returned to their various ailments, the meds they were on, the tests they had undergone or were going to undergo, how they'd compiled medical journals to track everything from what new boo-boo appeared on their skin after being in the sun to how difficult it was to find just the right kind of supplement to their healthy diets. People do have a right to focus on what they choose to focus on, but frankly, I'd rather focus on fun, laughter, creative endeavors and growth than health, health, health and the dangers of growing more seasoned and mature.

I can remember going to a physician at age 62. I needed an antibiotic for bacterial bronchitis. Can't write my own script, so I had to go. The physician read my chart and gave me a lecture on not going for all the recommended "preventative" tests that my insurance covered. She also stressed the very necessary importance of going for all of them and insisted I do it. My interior self disagreed with her opinion. I just let her talk. She kept pushing and telling me it was her job to advise me on the "need" for all these tests. I thanked her and then said, "And I won't be going for them." "What?!? If you wait on getting these tests, it could be too late!" "Too late for what? I am 62 years old. I am in good health except for occasional URIs and a disorder that medicine cannot really help because I've done all that was prescribed and learned I could better deal with it without meds and tests that didn't help. My children are grown. My grandson is on his way to high school. I am looking at retirement in a few years. I am going to die. What will be too late for me?" The body is a dynamic organ. Although medical science has made headway in some areas, tests can find problems that the body itself can heal. All the drugs that some in my circle have taken have resulted in the need for more meds to counterbalance the damage done by former meds. I'm not against seeing doctors or getting tests, but I do find that the constant focus on health - the lack of it or the fear of losing it - is boring and doesn't encourage stimulating conversation or living life in a celebrative fashion.

Thank you Luv123 for your comment 'these are your entitled, human and shameless feelings', it is a really lovely thing to say.
And thank you Grateful for reminding me to stay away from people who love to talk about their ailments. Great advice
I am 54 so the benchmark is still fairly fresh, I still feel it from time to time. When my mother turned 80 she took some lessons in driving a racing car. I think that it is nice to do something like that.

Wow Luv123, what a great post! And the replies that go with it are fabulous!

What I post here might be a little bit long, but I think it gives me a place to share it thanks to your post.

The big five ohhhhhh!  I went through something similar as what you describe.  There was a sense of grieving the past, of deep emotional sensitivity.  Something I had not done or even acknowledged would need to be done as time marked her place in my life again at the age of 50.   Then I turned 50.  Not only was it a milestone of age so to speak, but at that time, as many of you know, I discovered my ex wife was having an affair, and filed for divorce.  I was an absolute mess emotionally between the two.  Lose's were so close to my heart.  So many had come and gone.  I buried so many family members during the early 2000's, whose life's were ended tragically.  Two aunts, the last of my deceased mothers family of origin were murdered in Fort Myers, Florida.  One was on hospice, at home and the person who did this broke into her home and beat her to death.  He then showered and ate.  She was an Al-Anon member for 40+ years of her life.  My other aunt lived only 2 miles away and would check on her 2 -3 times a day.  She went to the home a few hours later and he was still there.  He beat her to death also.  Then tried to set the house on fire in a effort to destroy evidence of what he had done and/or means by which he could be identified.  The fire went out by itself without spreading or even indicating to neighbors that a fire had been started in it.  One of my cousins (second aunts daughter) went to the house to find her mother when she wasn't home later that evening and found both of them dead.  This ripped the heart out of our family.  We gathered in Ft. Myers from all over the U.S. "Murder  -Bludgeoned to death by a unknown heavy object" is all the coroner's office would tell us.  The police would only say they were investigating, but could not provide us with any information at the time.  About 6 weeks later, they arrested a man in Topeka, Kanas and charged him with their murders.  This was 2007.

Within 90 days of this tragic and traumatizing experience, my oldest and favorite sister Dee, was murdered by her alcoholic husband of 27 years in Vinton, Va, after he discovered she was consulting with a divorce attorney.  Upon her return home from the attorney's office, which she thought he knew nothing about, he met her in the living room with a gun and put a bullet in her head.  Then hid her body in the basement.  Their daughter, my niece, went to visit them as she did daily on her way to or from work, and he would not let her in the house.  She tried calling her mother on her cell phone and house phone with no answer and then called the police asking for a "well being check" on her mother.  They went and found my sister dead on the basement floor.  Her husband admitted to the police he had killed her in a rage over her attempting to find out about filing for a divorce.  This was 2007.

2008 I turned 50.  Now, during these and many other loses prior, I was always the strong one that family and friends would lean on.  I was the one that got things done.  Like working with life insurance company my sister was on, taking her husband off as beneficiary since he murdered her, and getting it re-assigned to their adult daughter, calling and making memorial and funeral arrangements, etc, etc. I literally "stuffed" my own grief during these experiences so I could function, for I knew that if I broke, I would not be able to be of any use to any one.  Problem was, I stuffed it so deep that even in the aftermath of it all, I couldn't let it out, process it out.  And I came into turning 50, feeling a bit guilty for not being able to cry, feel much of anything related to these tragic deaths of very dear and close family members.  Yet, a TV commercial, a movie, a song on the radio, a story in the news... would have tears rolling down my face.  

I started having anxiety attacks too.  Never in my life did I have any real anxiety but now I was being gripped by horrible attacks that seemed to come out of no where.  Things got so bad inside of me by 2012, that I went to a professional for help.  This psychiatrist hit the nail on the head pretty much from the get-go.  He determined that I didn't have a mental health disorder, but I had been walking through a grave yard every year for about 20 years literally and had so much unresolved grief pinned up in me that it was coming out sideways and giving itself expression in the anxiety attacks.  He would usually refer someone like me to someone else, but for whatever reason, wanted to work with me for a year.  We worked out the financial bugs so I could afford him and my therapy started.  I was able to start the process of grieving the loses I had experienced and stuffed for as much as 20 years.

I am 55 yrs old now.  And the past two years, while having both good and not so good life experiences, I am able to live life fully.  My insides and outside world are matching with out any false pretense of "okayness".  Maybe more fully than I have ever lived life.  There is a peace, a calmness, a newness to my life today.

This past week, I went and did something I have wanted to do for years, that I use to do regularly and really enjoy.  I went camping.  I even went out of state, from North Carolina to Ohio, to do it.  I had a blast!  Oh my, let me not forget this part... I had a absolutely beautiful woman with me!  We visited Akron, AA's birthplace with Dr. Bob and Bill W, and went to all the AA historical sites.  

For me, this process started at the age of 50.  It was not an easy process to go through, and find my way but as you make very clear in your post, it all started with owning it, feeling it, letting it have appropriate expression and letting go.  Working the steps, especially step three on a daily basis during this process helped me cross the bridge from the shore of reason to the shore of faith.

John

 

Our little camp ground site.  Loved it!

Violet and I sitting at the kitchen table in Dr. Bob's house, where he and Bill W. worked with many alcoholics, and started the very beginning of AA.  So, cool!

I understand your feelings concerning milestones. There are of course all kinds and it's a matter of how we choose to see them. Holidays, children growing to independence, death of loved ones, changes to personal health and physical appearance.  I think a lot of how we feel results from how society itself views aging in a negative way. And of course we can talk about how elders are revered in some countries yada yada yada but personally I'm not sure if age and wisdom are synomymous. I've always been a person who is excited to know people of all ages and cultures and to keep learning and growing. There's no denying that I've lost a great many people now. That became more evident than ever in the last few years with the dealth of my mother and final rejection of my brother after we tied up lose ends concerning her final affairs.  I think the emotional devastation I've felt concerning that wouldn't have been any different at any age.  I had dinner this week with a gf who is not in the program.  I learned such a valuable lesson from her luv.  I asked how her volunteering on a particular community committee was coming along. She has done this now for a number of years and plans to do it three more years before moving on to something else.  What struck me is that she told me she realized that her only child who is now grown knew more people in her town even though she has lived there almost triple the time. My friend is older than you and I, she is in her early sixties. She said she thought it was time she got to know some people. Her husband is still living but she's showing me where I'm falling short concerning myself.  I've taken good care of myself and found activities that are personally enriching such as hobbies, physical exercise, alanon.. but what have I done lately to grow out of my comfort zone??  My program tells me "you are not alone."  Well, my activities are isolationist activities even when done in a group setting.  I do them and leave aside from alanon where I connect with others.  My friend is connecting and becoming known by other people in her town and making new friends. She's building on that and watching changes happen in her town that she has been a part of making happen. How cool is that!  She has no background. She just saw a need and became a part of. I realized that this is where I have been lacking. I don't have to be overwhelmed by life on life's terms.  I can define and redefine myself as often as a care to.   I'm the handiwork of my high power not society. What new thing can I learn today?  What do I have today that I can teach others if asked? Have I laughed or told a knock knock joke?  Do I feel the god of my understanding walking next to me as I go through my day? Life is good, luv! We're growing more beautiful inside an out with every passing day because we've seen more and know a little more than yesterday.  Funny about the dead guy's wife but I hope you'll trade your bike rides to the graveyard for biking group and breakfast afterward with them. Lots of possibilities with the living, luv and you've got lots of living to do. :) (((hugs)))  TT

I turned 63 in April. I joined alanon seriously last June when I was 62. This has been the best year of my entire life and I still have lots of problems, including living with an A spouse. Alanon has taught me to like and respect myself so much more, it has given me tools to cope with my A and lots of other people, and between the board, my sponsor, and my F2F meeting, there are many people who care and are helping me along this journey. Am I sad I didn't join alanon 20 years ago? Yes. But I need to live in the present or else be miserable all the time. I'm done being miserable all the time. So hang in here with us and you will be able to embrace your life. My sponsor taught me "Alive in my life." I can now see many blessings, Lyne