Numbers don’t lie. They mean exactly what you want them to mean.
We live in a culture obsessed with data and metrics. The number on your bank statement, on the scale, the weight on a barbell, the number of steps you walked, exercise minutes logged, stand goals achieved, hours of sleep attained, sales closed, followers, likes, subscribers.
And the big one: Age.
When you’re young, different ages bring different milestones: the double-digits at 10, the bar or bat mitzvah or confirmation at 13, a driver’s license at 16, the right to vote at 18, the right to drink at 21, the quarter-century mark at 25, the milestone of 30.
My grandmother used to say that age is just a number.
When I was still in my “milestone” years that felt harder to appreciate.
Today I turn 51.
It’s a lot more low-key than the big half-century milestone I marked last year.
And after 51 years on this planet, I feel like maybe I now get what my grandmother was saying.
People often express surprise when they learn my age. They tell me that I “don’t look 50.”
But what is it supposed to look like? Or feel like?
Culture tells us that women in their 50s are on the decline.
We’re losing estrogen. We’re losing strength. We’re losing cognitive function.
On one hand: you can’t deny the reality.
Shortly after I turned 50, my estrogen plummeted. I’ve experienced weight gain and the debilitating impact of hormonal changes on an ADHD brain, sometimes resulting in a debilitating loss of cognitive function.
These changes disrupted my rhythms and routines.
But those losses aren’t the full story.
I have been forced to adapt — to create new rhythms and new routines.
I regained full range of motion after a knee injury, hit new Personal Records in all of my major lifts, and have improved my cardiovascular capacity and endurance.
I’m in better overall shape now than I was in my 30s.
Hardly a woman on the decline.
Everything is a matter of perspective.
Perimenopause and menopause are culturally framed as an ending: the decline into oblivion and irrelevance.
But in the larger arc of a human lifespan, this is only the middle.
The hormonal changes of perimenopause come toward the end of the “summer phase” of life.
This is the time associated with the first harvest, the early fruits of the tending and “mothering” phase of mid-summer.
It’s a time of harvest and continued growth. We are not yet at the compost heap.
I have earned wisdom, pattern recognition, greater awareness, discernment, and authority — and I’m still becoming.
This phase of life is about pruning the weeds so we can clear the way for the fruit-bearing buds to bloom.
Many women in this phase of life are rediscovering themselves after years spent focused on caregiving, career-building, meeting others’ expectations, or caring for the needs of everyone around them before their own.
This is not a time of decline, but a time of new beginnings — a chance to reinvent and start fresh with the wisdom of what we need to succeed and the courage to advocate for ourselves to receive it.
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