This Might Not Have Been in the Script…

There’s a story many of us grew up with about what life at midlife would look like.

By now, you’d have it all “figured out.” The steady career. The home that signaled stability. The family picture that matched the holiday cards. A sense of certainty and arrival.

But for so many of us—especially Gen X—midlife doesn’t look anything like the script we were handed. Instead, it feels like standing in the middle of contradictions: carrying responsibility while questioning meaning, holding grief for what hasn’t unfolded, and wondering who we are outside of expectations.

In this episode of It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way, Laura Rees and I unpack what it means to live in the gap between the myth and the reality of midlife—and how to make that space a site of freedom rather than failure.

“You don’t have to live by a script you didn’t write.”

We talk about:

• The cultural myths of midlife and why they’re unraveling
• What Gen X absorbed from media and models—and how we’re outgrowing them
• The grief of unmet expectations and how to move through it with compassion
• How to redefine midlife on your own terms—with more curiosity, less judgment

This episode is an invitation to anyone who has looked around at their life and thought, “This isn’t what I imagined… but maybe it’s still worth claiming.”

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re behind, off-track, or missing the mark—this conversation will remind you: midlife isn’t a deadline. It’s a doorway.

🎧 Listen to the full episode: Unlearning the Myth of Midlife