The day this essay publishes will be my 60^th birthday.  As I’ve been thinking of what I wanted to write about as I hit this milestone, I keep going back to memories of my 50^th birthday.  I was, to put it mildly, not in a good place.  I was adrift in so many ways!  Personally, I had been unattached for a little over a year and at that time found myself “sort of involved” in a very unhealthy non-relationship.  I was 25 pounds heavier than I am today and trending upward.  Professionally, I was in a great job that I found really gratifying and paid really well, yet also was more frustrating than any role I’d ever held.  The stress I was under felt unrelenting.  As I approached that milestone birthday, I fell into a real funk because my life was just not where I thought it would be (or where I wanted it to be) when I pictured “life at 50”.  Worse, I didn’t really see a pathway to making things better.

I marvel, then, at my life today as I approach 60.  I can honestly say I’ve never been happier.  While my life is not perfect, it’s pretty darn good.  First and foremost, I’m five years into a marriage that I honestly never thought would happen.  I cannot believe my good fortune in finding Trish and all that has come with this relationship.  My worst professional fears came true when my job was eliminated in the midst of an epic corporate power struggle which I lost, yet I was relieved when it happened!  I weigh the same as I did in grad school 35+ years ago (although, admittedly, distributed a bit differently).  I am incredibly fortunate to be financially comfortable and reasonably healthy.  I have an amazing best friend who stuck by me during those bad years and continues to share these good ones.  I am surrounded by family and friends.  I am living in the present, enjoying every moment, and feel that gratitude every day.  How on earth did this happen?

The picture that accompanies this essay is of a U-shaped curve representing “happiness,” or satisfaction with life, as a function of age.  Not surprisingly, we tend to be happy as children and then start a long downward slide through puberty and early adulthood.  There is often a little uptick in your 30’s, when most of us start to hit our stride personally and professionally, but as I learned, happiness tends to bottom out right around age 50 before starting a rise that continues through the rest of your life.  There are a range of hypotheses offered to explain this dip, often referred to as a mid-life crisis (although few of us will live to 100, which just adds to the angst).  For me it was that realization of “I’m not where I want to be and I feel like I’m running out of time.”  For many it is also a time of being caught between the demands of growing children and aging parents or when money troubles really hit hard.  There are lots of reasons for this bottoming out, but why does it begin to rise again, as well as continue to get better the older you get?

Since I’m too lazy to do a comprehensive review of the available literature on this topic, I’m going to take my usual approach of just sharing my thoughts on this matter.  I believe I’m getting happier and happier not (just) because I have a fairly cushy life now, but because I’ve finally realized that if you keep pushing forward, if you keep doing what you believe are the right things to do, then things can get better.  In short, I’ve become more resilient.  I’ve written on resilience before and I did find it instructive to reread that essay before writing this one.  However, while I looked at resilience from a more tactical perspective in that essay, I’m leaning on a more emotional perspective today.  To explain what I mean by an “emotional” perspective, let’s look at the title of this essay.  It is a loose reference to the tag line of The Trevor Project, an organization that provides counseling and support for LGBTQ youth.  The signature outreach effort of The Trevor Project is a series of videos made by famous and non-famous LGBTQ adults with this simple message:  “I know it seems really bad right now.  But it WILL get better.”  There are no tactical lessons on HOW to get to “better,” just the emotional assurance that it WILL get better.  Sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to hear.  Lord knows, I could have used The Trevor Project (or just the dang internet!) when I was a teenager.  And let me tell you:  teenage Sherri would look upon 60-year-old Sherri with awe.  OK, maybe not “awe” but at least thinking, “Could that really be ME?”  Yes, Sherri, it gets better.

Resilience, I believe, is a learned skill and one that you choose to develop, whether consciously or not.  I also assume there is some truth to the Nietzsche saying, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.”  We all have stories of trials and tribulations and I don’t need to recount mine here.  Suffice it to say that there were times throughout my life when I really could have benefited from someone saying to me, “It gets better.”  Maybe they did.  Maybe it was in a kind word that someone said to me after a particularly difficult day at work.  Maybe it was within advice that Mom or Dad gave me when I probably didn’t want to hear it (but needed to anyway).  Maybe it was one of the many, many times Beth forced me to get out of my own head by going to run errands together or on one of our many trips to Vegas.  Maybe it was a bit a grace that came along with a deep breath as I tried to settle myself down to sleep at night.  All I know is that I kept putting one foot in front of the other and kept moving forward.  Life has a funny way of sending you what you need if you just stay open to whatever that might be. 

Fittingly, I was tested over the days between the first draft of this essay and these final edits.  In rapid succession, I was hit with two emotional “body blows”.  The first fed right into my lifelong fear of rejection and being blind-sided.  The second brought up my career long feelings of Imposter Syndrome.  I struggled that first night, complete with anxiety dreams.  The morning brought a little distance and perspective that allowed me to think things through (and talk them through with Trish).  By the following morning, I was back to myself. Somehow, I seem to have become a fairly resilient person.  And I truly believe that I will continue to follow that “happiness” curve upward, regardless of what the future brings.  That doesn’t mean it will be all sunshine and rainbows, but it does mean the trend line will continue to move upward.  Remember this when you are having a tough day, or a string of tough days.  Keep taking steps forward.  Stay true to yourself.  It gets better.