Seven things that surprised me about being 50

Five decades in, Bianca Zander finds herself looking at life in fresh ways.

In the lead up to my 50th birthday, I suffered a few setbacks, and to put it bluntly, despair was nudging at my heels. Without going into the gory details, I was unemployed, out in the dating wilderness, and like almost every other creative type I know, had been recently and expensively diagnosed with ADHD. I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate, and felt more like hiding from the world. Six months earlier, with a redundancy payment blinging out my bank account, I'd booked a round-the-world plane ticket, but with no job to come back to, I was extremely apprehensive about setting off on a month-long trip. By apprehensive, I mean broke.

But then a surprising thing happened – and it was only the first in a string of surprises. I woke up on the morning of my birthday feeling fiendishly liberated. “Here I am in my F***-IT 50s,” I texted a friend. “Woo hoo. Let’s go!”

The same thing had happened to her. “Lots of things turning around in my head before 50 then the feeling that I had to grab the bull by the horns!”

Turning 50 seems to be one of those moments in life where who dares, wins. But I don’t think winning has to mean starting up a wellness empire or getting a wolf cut. For me, it’s been a gentle acceptance of who I am, including my limitations. Gone are the grandiose ambitions of youth, which served me well but were also exhausting to try and manifest, and in their place is a softer wish to make a contribution, however small, to growing the pool of kindness in the world.

I never thought at 50, I’d sound like Miss Universe, but there you have it.

Here are the seven other things that surprised me:

I get it from my mother. In her 60s and 70s, she’s travelled on her own to Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Japan, Nepal and India. No guided tours for her. She just sets off with her wheelie bag and a Lonely Planet and quite often stays in backpackers' to keep the costs down. When I asked for her list of countries visited, she told me to emphasise the fact she’s “not a trust fund baby!” I will go one step further and share that at 77, she still works in retail, lives frugally, and saves up all year to go on her trips.

Mum’s an inspiration, but I haven’t always followed her lead. In my 20s, when most Kiwis are travelling the world, I was dealing with anxiety so acute that I once went to Wellington for a work trip and flipped out so badly in an anonymous Quest apartment that I had to fly home a day early (an episode fictionalised in my first novel The Girl Below). It put me off going anywhere far-flung for a very long time, but a year ago, I took my kids (10 and 15) to Japan and caught the travel bug. In June, I visited Berlin, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. No flipping out, just a grinning, middle-aged woman on a bicycle, rediscovering the joy of travel and connecting with the person she was before children and responsibilities weighed her down.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve had more than enough. At times, I have wondered if I was addicted to self-help books and therapy. Ayurveda, Reiki, acupuncture, hypnosis, Family Constellations therapy, RTT, EFT, CBT. I have tried it all and got something from everything, shilling out the GDP of a small island nation in the process. What can I say? I thought there was something wrong with me, and a year ago, like so many others, I found out there was. While ADHD explains some of the symptoms, so does the cognitive rollercoaster of perimenopause, and so too does the way we live now. After reading Johann Hari’s excellent book Stolen Focus, which outlines the many and varied reasons for our collective attention problems, it’s hard not to be sceptical about the sudden prevalence of ADHD, my own included. About seven years ago, I discovered Insight Meditation, and eventually studied for two years to teach it to others. This practice, more than anything, has helped me to accept myself, flaws and all, and to extend the same kindness towards others.

In my 20s and 30s, I lived off fumes and worked hard to prove myself as a journalist and a novelist and then as a newly-divorced parent who could provide for my kids, but all that striving came at a cost and by the end of my 40s, I was frankly, burnt out. I couldn’t do any of it anymore, and no amount of self bloody care could recharge the battery. This seems to be a common theme among women I know. You get to perimenopause and the wheels, which have been spinning furiously for years, just flip off into oblivion.

Since turning 50, I’ve deliberately taken a less senior role, which allows me some mental space and is flexible enough that I can pick up my kids from school. (Yes, I landed a job while I was on my shoestring world tour, doing a midnight interview in Oslo, and accepting the role in a deli in New York).

After my father died five years ago, I was able to buy a house, and I’m extremely fortunate to have a small enough mortgage that I can survive (just) without a huge income. I honestly don’t know how people paying hefty rents or mortgages are getting by, because the cost of living has risen so sharply that going to the supermarket gives me vertigo. Perhaps because I’ve arrived at financial security later in life, I’m acutely aware of the immense advantages it bestows. I have freedom and choices that weren’t available to me when I was living hand to mouth, which I did for decades. From that secure foundation, I’m free to dream about what to do next, which could be writing, or travel, or teaching meditation and I have room for a few side hustles, one of which is DJ-ing. What with all the 50ths, it’s been a boom time. A month ago in a local bar, I co-hosted a disco night called We Came to Dance (exactly what it says on the label) with a good friend and it was such a blast that we’re doing it again in December.

There are so many things I no longer worry about in the slightest: Being relevant or cool. Keeping up with the latest fashions, celebrities, music trends. Wrinkles. How many followers I have on social media. But I have a greater capacity to care about the things that matter to me. My friends and family. My children. Inequality. Geopolitics and the state of the world. The climate crisis, and why we are doing so little to reduce our carbon emissions and transition to clean energy when we have all the necessary technology at our disposal. I’ll stop there, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned at 50, it’s when to shut up.

I’m putting this one in so I don’t come across as an insufferable meditation bore. It was a few months ago at my friend’s 50th, and I was standing outside in a huddle with a couple of old mates who are regular pot smokers. For the last twenty years of our friendship, they’ve passed the doobie right around me because they know I don’t smoke, but this time I intercepted it. It was fun but I probably won’t do it again. Why now? Absolutely no idea, I was as surprised as anyone.

The biggest and most welcome surprise of all. It’s early days, so I don’t want to say too much, but sticking to the theme, I’m surprised by how easy and fun it is to be in a relationship with someone mature, secure and kind. “He’s a gentleman,” said my son, when they met for the first time. I’m looking forward to seeing how our love story unfolds.