Woman Over 50 And Still Giving Too Many Fucks (Apparently)

I’m a woman over 50. But unlike most women on Instagram, my fifties aren’t any better than my 40s. Which weren’t better than my 30s. Which were a fuckton better than any decade before it. Partly because my 20s were smothered by struggle and my childhood was perfectly fine with some pesky abuse. You don’t exactly plan on those as prerequisites for a strong decade, but they helped.

But I can’t see the Instagram of any woman over 50 without her going on about how her fifties are her “best decade”. Somewhere in her feed there’s always a post meant to uplift younger women. Like perfectly lit sunshine and rainbows at the end of the doomtunnel that is aging femalehood.

This Woman Over 50 Isn’t “Fabulous”

When I see those posts, I don’t feel hope. I feel shame. Why aren’t my fifties the perfect decade? I know, logically, it’s all marketing. Everyone’s path is different. But the traumatized kid inside me still thinks: What am I doing wrong?

If social media is to be believed, each decade is better than the last. And decades are marked by the declining number of fucks we give. But here I am, a woman over 50, and I just gave one very big fuck just yesterday.

Yesterday’s fuck was about a beauty appointment. I missed it. I thought thought it was today, so I didn’t show up. This has literally never happened before. I’ve been seeing this person for ten years. Even followed them through four different companies like a codependent personal grooming disciple.

After I got their text asking if I was okay, I admitted my mistake. The service provider said I’d need to pay the full price for the missed appointment. Which, okay, that’s the policy. But I had naïvely hoped that ten years of loyalty meant something. So I asked if we could “negotiate.”

“I’m confused. What negotiation would be taking place?” They said.

Cold, right? Ice cold. A ten-year relationship that I always thought was friendly cracked like an iceberg of delusion.

“On the price,” I wrote. “I’m so sorry I got all screwed up. But we’ve been working together for ten years. Is there any arrangement we can make?”

They came back with, “Here’s what I’m willing to offer. Pay 50% for today, let me put a card on file, and you pay a deposit for your next appointment.”

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

John Barrymore

I didn’t care about the money and I understood the policy. I could also afford it. That’s one of the perks of your fifties if you plan it right. But I did care about feeling valued. About loyalty. About reciprocal relationships that transcend “policy.”

It was also the tone. That cold, bureaucratic little “What negotiation would be taking place?” Like I’d tried to haggle over the number of hugs to give when a friend’s pet dies.

My Stylist Isn’t My Friend

I didn’t think we were friends, but I thought we were friendly. We talked about our families. I followed them on social media (they never followed me back, which should have been a clue). We talked about politics and family and trauma. Every single time he wanted me to reschedule, I did it without complaint. Plus I tipped well (always 20%, sometimes 30%).

I thought we had a good relationship. Turns out, we had customer retention. So their response hurt. More than it should have if I were out of fucks to give. I felt tossed aside like an old pair of shoes with a squeak and a hole. Useful for a while, but ultimately ugly, pointless, and no longer worthy of kindness.

So then I started obsessing. Where those “life is better in your fifties” women would have fucked off and waltzed to their streamlined walnut kitchens to make espressos on their Rocket Epicas, I was a grown-ass-old woman over 50 asking ChatGPT what I should do. 

After ChatGPT said I should cut my losses and move on, I texted an old friend from high school. We stay in touch by texting but rarely see each other. But even as I write this, I wonder how different my idea of our relationship is from hers. I consider her a close friend, but what if I’m just this weirdo she used to know who keeps her entertained at work?

Not Fresh Out Of Fucks After All

So natch, I woke up at 3 a.m this morning (the official anxiety hour for menopausal women) convinced nobody in my life values me the way I value them. Friends. Family. Pets.

Turns out, this woman over 50 still has a fuck or two to give.

As I lay there on my smart bed with my iPad and best dog in the world as my sweet, smart husband snored like a freight train beside me, I wondered how I got so many relationships so wrong. To my husband, I’m just a housekeeper with a sense of humor and some useful holes. My dog thinks I’m a ball and food machine. To my friends, comic relief.

The goal of life is to take everything that made you weird as a kid and get people to pay you money for it when you’re older.

David Freeman

It wasn’t the first time I spun out. I’ve spent a lifetime overestimating the closeness of people who were just being polite. My superpower is mistaking basic human decency for intimacy.

Sure, I have more money, a spouse and a comfortable house, none of which I had in my thirties. But my thirties also delivered useful ignorance, a lean body, and the hope of the perfectly molded life. All of that was destroyed in my forties. I’m left with cynical wisdom, a puffy build, and the hope that I don’t die this year.

My Fifties Are Different, But Not Necessarily “Better”

By morning, I was fine. I had already made an appointment with someone new and hope they’re competent. But if not, I’ll just keep shopping until I find someone whose friendliness I (hopefully) don’t confuse for friendship while my grooming is less predictable for a while.

Then today on Instagram, I saw another post about the confidence miracle of your fifties and started writing this post. It felt important to remind women of all ages that everyone’s fifties aren’t “fabulous”. Maybe they’re just “fine”. With some fucks left to give.

Maybe nobody ever reaches full fucklessness. We just want to believe we do until something pricks some old, entrenched wound and cuts us open yet again. 

But I like to think we give progressively fewer fucks. And recover faster. And when we see that perfect body or kitchen or attitude on social media, we give half a fuck. You know, instead of those sixteen fucks we used to give that cause us to empty our bank accounts so we can post something on social media that makes someone else want what we have.