Turning Fifty Isn’t a Crisis. It’s a Reckoning: Midlife, Neurodivergence, Love, and Loss

Turning fifty is not a crisis.
 It is a reckoning.
 And it changed how I see everything.

In this year end episode of Confessions of a Gen-X Mind, I reflect on the moments that quietly reshaped my life at midlife. What began as recalibration became a year of closure, clarity, and unexpected forward motion.

I talk honestly about starting the year single and how difficult it was to truly move on while a past marriage still lingered emotionally. When my ex finally moved away, that chapter closed in a real and lasting way. That closure changed how I dated, how I showed up, and why meeting Alice felt different from anything that came before.

This episode also explores neurodivergence and self understanding at midlife. After years of therapy and reflection, I share why my upcoming formal ASD and ADHD assessments matter to me. Not as labels, but as medical documentation that brings clarity, protection, and the ability to advocate for accommodations in life and work. I do not experience neurodivergence as a disability. I experience it as a superpower once it is understood.

I reflect on the generational shift that arrives faster than anyone prepares you for. Parents age. Roles reverse. Stories get shared around holiday tables about falls, injuries, and the quiet realization that we are now the adults in the room. I lost my father in 2022, and Alice lost both of her parents within the last year. Grief, responsibility, and gratitude now coexist.

Love is part of this story too. This episode follows a midlife relationship built on steadiness rather than fantasy. We navigate real health challenges together, and we end the year engaged. On New Year’s Eve, we will be traveling to New Orleans to celebrate and mark this moment with an engagement photo shoot in the French Quarter.

There is also a late arriving footnote. After avoiding COVID throughout the worst of the pandemic, Alice and I finally caught it together in Las Vegas. Not dramatic. Just fitting.

This is not a highlight reel.
 It is a recalibration.

If you are navigating midlife, relationships, neurodivergence, aging parents, or the sense that everything shifted while you were busy living, this episode is for you.

Fifty does not feel like the end.
 It feels like standing exactly where I am, with clarity.

Transcript

George TenEyck: 0:00

There's a moment in midlife when the universe stops asking questions. It doesn't force answers. It doesn't stage an intervention. It simply removes the last obstacle and watches to see if you finally step forward. This year, I turned fifty, and by the end of it, something quiet but decisive happened. A chapter that had been lingering finally closed. And everything else moved faster because of it. This is Confessions of a Gen X Mind. I'm George Tanik. And this episode isn't about what happened this year, but it's about why it finally worked. I started this year single, but not unentangled. That's an important distinction. On paper, my marriage had already ended. Emotionally, it was complicated. My ex left suddenly in 2022 during a period when I was not well, and that rupture never fully resolved itself cleanly. We divorced, we stayed cordial, we even remained improbably platonic friends. Don't ask me why. Some of it was her guilt, some of it was her concern, some of it, if I'm being honest, was my desperation at the time. When you're depressed, alone can feel louder than betrayal. And sometimes you accept proximity when you should demand distance. She was a realtor. She helped me find and buy a house in 2024. She didn't have to do that. She gave me a break on the commission, and that was great, and I took it. But I think in her own way she wanted me to be stabilized, rebuilt, and staying again before she finally left town. Because she eventually did. She moved back to her hometown to care for her aging parents. And when she left town, I mean really left, something shifted. Not dramatically, quietly, but decisively. We talk a lot about moving on, like it's an internal decision. But sometimes it's logistical. Sometimes you can't fully close a chapter while the person who represented still lives ten minutes away. Her leaving wasn't revenge. It wasn't triumph. It was permission. Permission to stop emotionally triangulating the present with the past. Permission to date with intention instead of comparison. Permission to imagine a future that didn't have a footnote attached. That timing matters more than we like to admit. Because once that chapter finally truly closed, not bitterly, just finally, everything else accelerated. So when I returned to dating this year, I did it differently. I wasn't trying to prove I was okay. I wasn't auditioning happiness. I was simply available. I tried the apps, paid the premiums, trusted the algorithms, and I found the same thing that many people at this age do. A lot of people are still buffering, still married, recently separated, emotionally unprocessed, time wasters, validation collectors. Eventually I stopped paying. I landed on Facebook dating, quiet, unglamorous, unoptimized. And that's where I met Alice. And here's the key difference. There was no emotional static, no unresolved past sitting between us, just presence. And that made all the difference. Turning 50 didn't arrive with fireworks. It arrived with appointments, colonoscopy, full cardiac workup, stress test, echocardiogram, a dermatologist visit that I probably should have done about 10 years ago. Everything came back solid, not perfect, but healthy. Which mattered more because this was also the year my mind finally came into focus. Therapy gave me language. Neurodivergence gave me context. And now formal autism and ADHD assessments are coming. Not for identity, for documentation, for clarity that exists not internally, but on paper, for future accommodations and life and work. I don't experience neurodivergence as a disability. I experience it as a superpower. Pattern recognition, depth, sensitivity, systems thinking. The assessment isn't about limitation, it's about stewardship. At the same time, the world around us was changing in 2025. My mom broke her hip. And then about two months later, she broke the other one. The first time I beat the ambulance to the hospital, that moment sticks with me, not as a win, but as a marker. Alice and I share this realization. It feels like yesterday we were just finishing college, starting careers, and figuring out rent and resumes. And then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, 20 years has passed. Our parents are now in their 70s and 80s. I lost my dad in 2022. Alice lost both of her parents within the last 18 months. We really felt it during the holidays. Sitting with her family and trading stories of parents falling, parents breaking bones, parents becoming frail. Sometimes funny, sometimes sobering, always clarifying. We are now the adults in the room, as scary as that sounds for Gen X. But I'm not quite ready for AARP yet. But I'm ready for responsibility. In the middle of all this, Alice faced her own health chapters this year. A hip replacement back in September, a newly diagnosed heart condition she's had for her entire life, appointments, medications, waiting rooms. This is love in midlife. Not fireworks, steadiness. Choosing presence over panic, support over spectacle. And one final box checked itself off this year. COVID. I made it through the worst of the pandemic untouched, somehow. And then in September, in Las Vegas, Alice and I both got COVID. Sin City's parting gift. Go to the sphere, they said. It's awesome. Sounds like a good place to catch COVID. And then the turn. I got engaged this year. On New Year's Eve, Alice and I are traveling to New Orleans to celebrate it, to market, and to do an engagement photo shoot in the French Quarter. A city that understands history, resilience, music, and mourning in the same breath. It just feels right. When I look back at this year, their pattern is unmistakable. Closure came first. Clarity followed. Connection arrived naturally. I didn't force the arc. I finally stopped resisting it. Turning 50 didn't make me wise necessarily. It made me aligned. This year didn't give me answers. It gave me timing. And timing, it turns out, is everything. If you're listening to this and you're stuck between who you were and who you're becoming, check what's still tethered to your ankle. Sometimes the next chapter isn't waiting on effort. It's waiting on release. I'm George Tenike, this is Confessions of a Gen X Mind. And from here, the story didn't end. It finally opened. If you've been following along with the podcast this year, it's a lot, I know, but it's all worth it. And it's one hell of a story. If you like what you've heard so far, tell a friend and check out all of our episodes on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get podcasts. I'm George Tenike. This is Confessions of a Gen X Mind. I hope you'll keep listening in the new year. We'll talk to you soon.