In our culture it is very alienating to be 50. That age where it hits you that you may not even be middle aged now. Being young, from childhood to somewhere in the 30's was such a different perspective. I didn't see it then but I can see it now. Being in my 40's was (so far) the best time of life for me. I felt ok and even good sometimes. I felt I was ok with myself.

Then, among the years I should have been 40-something, 50 hit me. It came down hard and clouded everything. Even when I could have been happy being 40-something that 50 hung over me, hovering like my personal rain cloud of doom.

In younger years I had read about actresses and such who said there were no roles for older women. I thought little of it. I could see older women in TV shows, movies, commercials, etc. Likely they were in theatre too if I cared to look.

But, the actresses said it wrong. It's not that there aren't roles for older women. It's that there are so MANY roles for younger women, younger people.

Our culture is based on youth. Not just being young and looking it, but the parts of life which come in those younger years (traditionally): going to school, dating, marrying and having children. When I watch anything on TV now I am swarmed with the feeling of how much I don't belong. How far I am past those parts of life. I don't want to go back. I just want to be ok with where I am. But, it's hard.

It's hard to feel ok with being older when it seems we don't exist, are expected to keep to ourselves and not be seen or heard. Unless it's something to do with spending money like buying insurance, buying sedate vacations, buying pee pads (not for your period, whether you still get it or not).

I feel alienated in my own world. I don't see where I fit in. I can talk to the younger generations. I don't know their particulars any more: the music, the actors, etc. But, those are just entertainment. I know about life, having come through those younger years. But all my experience and knowledge is tainted by how younger people see me. I'm old. I don't know the entertainment stuff so I'm relegated to being outdated, out of place and I don't really understand how things are today.

Odd, but things aren't all that different. People are born, go to school, try to get along in the world, get married, have babies (or not) and then.... it's the long stretch of being there, but not getting in the way, until you're finally as old as you feel.

I don't feel old. I feel like me. I feel almost the same as I did when I was twenty. But, those are memories and I know that. No wonder we tend to look at the past more as we fall into the future where we don't fit in and don't have a place. In the past we had a place and the world was about us.

Now I'm an alien. Just because I'm 50.

If it weren't for the perception of others (and my own awareness of time limits) I could believe I'm twenty. Young people expect being older to feel so different. It's not. It's almost exactly the same as feeling twenty. But, I look at those who are twenty and I can see a difference then. There is a shiny new-ness, an extra bounce and they're just a bit quicker to laugh.

So maybe we do become an alien as we get older. Where is the mothership then? I'd like to find the other aliens and feel I belong again. I don't like this feeling of being isolated among all the people I see every day.

The other thing I don't like to think about is to look past myself and see those older than I am. Right now I may not feel I belong and I may feel like an alien... they look more alien. I worry about how I will still feel like myself when I start to look even less like myself and more alien to who I think I am.

Where is that mothership...?

This is from my old Live Journal posts.

I have a new short hair cut, I don't like it. I miss my hair. It's too short to tie it up or clip it up or anything but let it hang where it may. I feel like I'm carrying a sleeping dog around on top of my head.

It doesn't help that I turned 42 at the end of 2006 and today I am at the very bottom of my coffee supplies. At least I can fix the coffee thing. I really do think this is as old as I should have to get now. I look ok still. I am just starting to wrinkle. The grey hairs are at the point where they are annoying but not yet really frustrating. I'd like to lose pounds but that I can do, being 42 doesn't especially make that a problem. Being 52 might and ten years doesn't seem like all that much when I consider I've lived four brackets of ten years so far and I don't feel I've really been around all that long. Just think of everything going on in the world, in the present and the past. I really will be ticked off when I die cause I won't see the future and all the changes and inventions to come. What a rip off! It's like starting a great book but having the writer tell you he isn't letting you read past the halfway point. Someone really should do something about that.

Comment from sheherazahde

![Hi,

I saw that you are the main Wicca writer for Suite101.

I do most of my journaling on LJ. and I didn't see how to get a feed from Blogger to LJ so I just friended your LJ.

We seem to a lot in common, I thought I would check you out for a while.]()

Here we are, not getting any younger and maybe a little more shapely and curvy than we’d like to be. We know the route to being thinner is diet and exercise. The problem is finding the motivation for this self deprivation and torture.

Future MILFs is an online group of women (not the only one) but I really like the appeal to a woman’s sexiness. Think of yourself as sexy rather than an overweight, older woman trying to get in shape. Think of all the head you will turn once you become a hot, sexy woman. Think of how great it will feel to turn those heads. Maybe this is the very motivation you need to get started and stick with a plan (your choice of plan) in order to become your hot, sexy self.

The Future MILF Club started as a weight loss group. Every Friday the Future MILFs post our "Weekly Weigh In". It includes pounds lost this week and total lost. You do NOT have to put your weight if you don't want to. Then include a little blurb on how your week went. If you dorked out when you got your gold star or stripped down to a tank top and bike shorts, a la The Biggest Loser, for your weigh in.

You can do any weight loss program that works for you so long as you keep your weigh ins honest. We want to know if you couldn't walk away from the Twinkie cause it will make the rest of us feel better for licking the peanut butter jar.

But as the club evolved we've all decided that we should open it up to people who are trying to get their sexy groove back in other ways too. Ladies who want to work on dressing like they did before kids used their shirt as a booger rag. Or maybe someone who wants to actually look forward to sex again but hasn't been able find their mojo since they had kids. Whatever your goal towards MILF-dom, post your progress on your blog every Friday. And post your failures too, it helps all of us to share.

But most importantly, keep a sense of humor. The name of our club was chosen in a tongue-in-cheek way to remind us of that.