Only with your full permission, cooperation and complete disinterest in taking control of your own life. Yes. I know you know this. If so, why on earth would you give power to such monumentally negative words?

I get where you are. I do. But a great deal of what you list here is societal messaging. You drink that Koolaid, you lose your life.

You eschew that Koolaid, you have a different life.

And I would argue strenuously, given that I am 67, that being fifty conveys NOTHING other than, well, being fifty. Age is just age. What you do with it defines you far more clearly.

You and I want different results? We make different choices.

I sure as hell did. Some were for shit, some were fucking amazing. They still are fucking amazing (as in no kids, no husband, no family any more, and a very full life ahead). But yours is up to you.

That is unless you hand your life’s agency to others who will happily fuck it up for you and blame you for the mess.

Your life, your driver’s seat, your steering wheel.