{"id":1071,"date":"2026-09-01T20:03:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T20:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2026-09-01T20:03:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T20:03:36","slug":"wait-im-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wait-im-50\/","title":{"rendered":"Wait\u2026 I\u2019m 50?!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The pretty girl at the medical research center asked me for the 20th time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow old are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I smiled and said, \u201c50.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And somehow, saying it out loud shocked ME more than it seemed to shock her. \ud83d\ude29\ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, I KNOW I\u2019m 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was there. I watched the years pass. I celebrated the birthdays. I have the evidence. \ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But hearing myself say it to someone else is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is not even the first time this has happened. Someone else asked me yesterday how old I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I\u2019m starting to wonder\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is everybody suddenly interested in my age?! \ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then I realized what is really eating me up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know what eats humans up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not necessarily the number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the prejudice we have about certain ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we are young, we create these little mental pictures of what people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond are supposed to look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 20, a 50-year-old seemed OLD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 30, 50 still seemed pretty far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then you get to 50 and suddenly you are standing in front of the mirror thinking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWait a minute\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo I LOOK that old?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow come I don\u2019t FEEL that old?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho told me THIS is what 50 was supposed to feel like?\u201d \ud83d\ude29\ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because somewhere along the way, I developed this idea that when I became 50, I would somehow feel like one of those \u201colder people\u201d I used to see when I was younger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know the people I mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people who seemed so grown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So settled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u2026 OLD. \ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now I have arrived at the very age I once assigned all those characteristics to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except nobody told my brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still laugh at ridiculous things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still have dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still get excited about new possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still have moments when I feel like I\u2019m figuring life out as I go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes I look in the mirror and think, \u201cGirl, when did THIS happen?\u201d \ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But maybe this is one of the strangest things about growing older.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t wake up one morning and suddenly become the age on your birth certificate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You simply keep being yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The face changes a little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The body reminds you that it has been keeping score. \ud83d\ude29\ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But inside, there is still so much of the same person who once dreamed, laughed, hoped, made mistakes, started over and wondered what life would become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that is why I am beginning to think differently about age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spend so much of our lives trying not to get old that we forget that getting older is actually a privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are years we once prayed to reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are experiences we have only gained because we stayed alive long enough to receive them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are lessons we could never have learned at 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there is a kind of beauty that comes from realizing that you don\u2019t have to become some imaginary version of a \u201c50-year-old.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can just be YOU at 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yes\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently. \ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And apparently, I am going to have to stop being surprised every time I say it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I reserve the right to look in the mirror occasionally and ask:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre we sure?\u201d \ud83d\ude29\ud83d\ude2d\ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I may have turned 50\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but I certainly don\u2019t feel like the 50-year-olds I imagined when I was 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that\u2019s the secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps none of us ever really feel like our age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We just keep living, loving, laughing, growing and becoming \u2014 while the numbers quietly change behind us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then one day somebody asks you how old you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c50.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And YOU are the one who needs a minute. \ud83d\ude02\u2764\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pretty girl at the medical research center asked me for the 20th time: \u201cHow old are you?\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-walk","article","has-background","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","has-post-media","thumbnail-"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_1715-scaled.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1074,"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions\/1074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolinebongo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}