Letting Go After 50: Why Fall Is The Perfect Time To Reset

Midlife Matters: Linda Butler

September has always had a certain mood. Less about making resolutions, more reckoning. The daylight shifts. The energy changes. We trade flip-flops for focus, and suddenly we can’t avoid the truth: another year is racing toward its end.

For women in midlife, it’s more than a calendar shift. It’s a mirror. We start asking: How does time fly by so fast? Is it too late to accomplish what I hoped to?

Kids are off to school, or not needing us the same way. Relationships are changing, or ending, or up for negotiation. The rhythm we once lived by no longer fits. And the old markers of success – overachievement, external approval, being in control – start to lose their grip.

This isn’t a midlife crisis. This is a midlife awakening. And it starts with letting go of what no longer fits.

The Lie We Were Sold:

Most of us inherited a story about how to live a good life. Be nice. Work hard. Don’t make waves. Keep everyone happy. Stay loyal. Do more. Be grateful. You’ll get your due rewards eventually.

Spoiler: The reward isn’t guaranteed.

We learned to perform. We learned to overfunction. We got good at managing everything – and everyone – around us. But no one told us what to do when the role stops working, the mask cracks, and the story starts to feel like someone else’s.

And yet, we cling to it. Even when it’s clearly expired. Even when it’s costing us time, peace, and joy. Letting go doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful. It means you’re awake.

The Cost of Carrying Too Much:

The heaviest weight gain in midlife isn’t pounds. It’s accumulation.

We carry outdated expectations, toxic loyalty, roles we never chose, and routines that quietly hollow us out. We stay in situations because “it could be worse.” We say yes when we mean no. We tell ourselves it’s just a phase, just until things calm down, just one more year. But “just” becomes decades. And before we know it, we’ve built lives that look fine from the outside, and feel numb on the inside.

Letting go is not weakness. It’s intelligence. It’s the decision to stop handing over your energy to stories you’ve outgrown and beliefs that never really belonged to you. And yes, sometimes it feels like breaking something. But that’s not destruction; that’s evolution.

What I Had To Release:

I used to believe being dependable made me valuable. That being loyal brought me safety. That looking out for everyone else’s interests made me irreplaceable. All it made me was tired. I was the reliable one. The committed one. But in staying in the same lane for too long, I slowly disappeared from my own life.

Letting go meant saying no when I used to automatically say yes. It meant becoming multifaceted, not just one-note. It meant shedding a version of myself that was crafted by the role I played for so long – but that eventually left me feeling flat.

What did it make space for? Breath. Honesty. A level of clarity I didn’t know was possible. And, eventually, my own voice. Not the “should do” performative voice. The internal voice that rises from your own gut and says, this is what I want now.

Let This Be the Season You Drop The Act:

Midlife doesn’t ask you to reinvent yourself overnight. It just asks you to stop pretending.

• Stop pretending you’re fine with things you’re clearly not.
• Stop pretending your needs are negotiable.
• Stop pretending this version of life is all you get.

This isn’t about abandoning responsibilities or running off to live the island life (unless that’s your thing – then go for it). It’s about telling the truth about what’s no longer working and having the guts to do something about it.

Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is take a moment and ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?”

You’re Not Too Late. You’re Just on Time.

It’s easy to feel like you’ve missed your window. That if you didn’t figure it all out by 40 or 50, it’s too late to change. That’s another lie worth dropping. You’re not late. You’re layered. You’ve lived. You’ve failed. You’ve risen. You’ve adapted. That doesn’t make you behind; it makes you qualified.

So no, you don’t need to walk away from your current life. But you do need to stop sleepwalking through it. Midlife isn’t a winding down. It’s a stripping away. Of noise. Of obligation. Of illusion.

The good stuff? It starts when you stop performing and start choosing.

This Is What Letting Go After 50 Really Means:

Letting go isn’t passive. It’s not about surrendering or shrinking. It’s an active, often gritty decision to lay down what no longer fits and pick up something real.

Sometimes you let go of a role. Sometimes a belief. Sometimes a habit that was never really yours. And sometimes, you thank and let go of the version of yourself that made it this far – so a fuller version can finally take the lead.

That’s not weakness. That’s reinvention.

This September, don’t just slide back into the end-of-year routine. Let it be a reckoning. 

Let it be the start of a new chapter, created on your terms.

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