Carolyn’s Second 50 story

When I was 30, the age of 50 felt a long way off. Like somewhere on the other side of my life. When I was 40, I was too busy juggling family and work to think a decade ahead, but I recall that being over 50 was a time when people worked before retirement, then before moving into old age and death.

Until suddenly, I was 49. Not only did I have three children still firmly at home, but I had experienced a traumatic career disruption and it was dawning on me that I was now firmly in mid-life, potentially with many decades of life and work ahead.

Also dawning was the realisation that I now had life experience, hard-learned lessons, skills and wisdom to make these decades count in a way that I hadn’t imagined would be possible.

I’m not sure why I’d previously held such a narrow view of what life after 50 would be. My mother only stopped teaching piano when she was in her 90s (and that was only because of Covid restrictions). My grandmother lived in her home until she was 105 and ran a corner store for 60 years, starting after she was a young widow with two children. More recently, I’ve been involved in a successful Australian start-up, co-founded by an amazing woman who recently turned 60. As I looked around, I noticed other women, not content with the status quo, stepping outside the system to make positive change happen.

Yet, I was stuck.

I knew I wanted something different, but I felt trapped by the situation I was in. My three (gorgeous) neurodiverse sons required more parenting than I’d ever envisaged. A technology start-up I’d spent a decade helping to build - that was supposed to catch bad guys, got overtaken by other bad guys. I was caught up in years of litigation foisted on my husband by greedy investment bankers and their well-connected cronies. It had shaken not only my belief in myself, but in Australia’s entire corporate, government, and judicial systems.

I knew I wanted to contribute more than I was, but I didn't know how to make that happen.

Over the next few years, I kept myself busy with being a worker, wife, mother, daughter, friend and volunteer, however, I spent an increasing amount of energy thinking about the challenges I was facing, alternating with practising gratitude, actively vocalising the many things I was (and am) grateful for.

I’d gone from being a student once voted ‘most likely to succeed’, to feeling stuck in a life that was being half-lived. I knew at some level – even though I was very thankful for friends, family, and employment opportunities – I had strayed from my purpose. And I didn’t know what that purpose was.

I even got to the point, while bushwalking one morning in the first half of this year of imagining my own eulogy one day and someone saying, “She had so much potential, what happened to her life?”

As a naturally high-energy optimist, this really shook me. I decided it was time to take charge.

I contacted a couple of wise 50+ women I knew. Both made some great suggestions, including encouraging me to make a list of supportive women I could reach out and talk to. The list of fabulous women I know is long, but I decided to start by reaching out to just five. Some I hadn’t spoken to properly for years.

The person who responded the quickest was my now Second-50 co-founder, Melissa. She’d used her coaching skills to help me through a career transition over a decade earlier when I returned to work after having my first child. Long story short, I was retrenched within a year. We’d kept in touch but not regularly.

Melissa and I set up a zoom call for the same week, perhaps even the next day. Everything seemed too pressing for small talk so I started a conversation with my major concern: “I felt like you might be a wise woman to ask about what I should do with the rest of my life.”

By this stage, my life was calmer. There was more time for me to consider my own future.

I knew I was not content to fade-away as a self-funded retiree. I did not want to keep working in other people’s start-ups and I certainly didn’t want to work in a traditional corporate structure. I was keen for change but was worried about making the wrong choice of career and questioned my capacity to do something that was rewarding and added value.

Over previous years, I had talked with many women aged between 45 and 70. Many, including women I considered hugely talented and successful, felt similarly to me. They felt undervalued, couldn't imagine doing the same work for the next 20 years, and some felt they’d missed the opportunity to do something different. Others were taking control. Women retraining in everything from teaching to cybersecurity, creative pursuits, or using their experience to launch entrepreneurial ventures.

I felt sure that life after 50 does not have to simply be a continuation of what came before. Instead, it should be the beginning of an exciting new phase.

Did I have the guts to start a really positive second half of my life?

Amazingly, my concerns and ideas resonated with Melissa, who shared that, at 65, she was also facing a major life transition. Instead of the coaching-client mode I expected our call would take, we met as equals, furiously discussing the challenges, opportunities, desires and extraordinary potential of women in the second halves of their lives.

I shared my concept for Second 50: a movement to disrupt the way women think about the second half of their lives.

“I’d be interested in helping you build that,” she said, so I sent her my half-sketched out ideas. “I love it,” she said. “I’m in.”

Starting Second 50 is providing me with everything I was looking for. I’m actively contributing to others in a way that will hopefully have a lasting social impact. I’m using my creative skills in building a community and bringing ideas to life and I’m developing my love of writing.

I’ve allowed room for flexibility for family and my love of bushwalking and ocean swimming. I’m maximising my own neurodiverse super skill of being able to be hyper focussed when I’m fascinated by my work.

I am reconnecting with important women from across my life and meeting new ones every day. I’m using my research and writing to put my own journey in perspective in a way that will hopefully encourage others to do the same.

Thank you for reading my Second 50 story.

Some of my experiences might not fit at all with yours, but perhaps you recognise yourself in some of my trials, explorations and discoveries.

Might you find inspiration from joining with like-minded women who are all wanting to make the most of their years from 50-on?

If so, I look forward to seeing you in Second 50.

With best wishes,

Carolyn