The Whatever Years: Life on the Bleeding Edge of Generation X
Subscribe to a newsletter with news, ideas, and information to help you get through your 50s.
In your 50s, you are confronted with new challenges. Aging parents and boomerang kids. Trying to build retirement savings. Volatile financial markets. Age discrimination.
Life is short, and life is long, and for many of us, it’s lasted longer than we thought. AIDS and many cancers turned from automatic death sentences into chronic conditions. The Russians didn’t bomb us into oblivion. And now I look ahead, but to what? Moving into a Jimmy Buffett retirement community?
I think not. It’s fine if Margaritaville is your thing, but it’s not mine. Our current model of aging assumes that retired people have wealth, want to mountain bike, and wear horrible putty-colored shoes. And because Generation X represents a dip in the birth rate, there are fewer of us to get the attention of marketers.
Who I am
I was born in 1965, the first year of Generation X (1965-1980). And while these generational cohorts are artificial and arbitrary, they are a shorthand for people of a particular age. I look ahead into a confusing world, where work, politics, culture, and the economy are changing too fast for me to plan. Good thing I like roller coasters.
I started my career in financial services, and then I switched to writing: mostly about financial services, but not entirely. I’ve also taught finance and worked at a few fintech startups. In between, I’ve navigated child-rearing, marriage, elder care, friendship, the deaths of friends and family (too often, too soon), and a pandemic.
(If you want to know more about me, check out my work website, my Amazon author page with affiliate link, or my LinkedIn.)
And while I most definitely am an over-educated cis-het white lady, I live in a diverse and interesting world. I want to know all about everything! I am hoping that you, dear reader, will help. What do you want to know about? What should I know about your world?
Your life isn’t my life, but I’ll bet a lot of it rhymes. We have all had to do hard things to reach this point, and there will be more hard things to come. But also, a lot of fun.
Why you should subscribe
The first 500 subscribers to The Whatever Years will have a free subscription to everything, always. You’ll get two newsletters a week to start, one a roundup of things you’ll find interesting; the other an article that will inform or entertain. As the publication grows, I hope to add more issues, cover more critical information, and pay writers who can add more perspectives.
In exchange, I want your feedback. What should I cover? What do you care about? What should other people at this stage in life know about?
Promise never to wear putty-colored comfort shoes, then become a charter subscriber to The Whatever Years.
