Nobody Told Us It Would Be Like This

Midlife is weird. There, she said it. In this episode, Rachel gets real about the transitions, the 2 a.m. wake-ups, the hormones, the grief, and the big feelings that come with this stage of life and why all of it is completely normal. If you've ever felt like you're starting over, questioning everything, or wondering when it's finally your turn, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Why Rachel is awake between 2 and 4 a.m. every night (and why her Apple Watch might be lying)
• The grief that can sneak into midlife, even over things you didn't expect to grieve
• All the different transitions happening at once: kids leaving, divorce, retirement, career shifts, identity changes
• Why midlife can feel like starting over, even when you're bringing decades of experience with you
• The guilt that shows up when we ask, "When is it my turn?" and why you're allowed to ask it
• Why you're not broken, ungrateful, or in crisis. You're waking up.
• How Gen X women carry both heavy baggage and serious resilience
• The self-dismissal pattern Rachel keeps seeing in midlife women (and a full episode on this coming soon)

Links & Resources:

• Free Not Done Yet Reset Guide→ rachelaperry.com/notdoneyet
• DM Rachel on Instagram → @rachelaperry

Loved this episode? Share it with a midlife friend who needs to hear that what she's feeling is completely normal. We're building this movement together, and she is absolutely not done yet.

Transcript

Welcome To Not Done Yet

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Not Done Yet, the podcast for midlife women who know deep down their story isn't finished. I'm your host, Rachel Perry, and here we're gonna talk about what's really happening in this season of life: the identity shifts, the quiet questions, the courage it takes to listen to yourself again, what it actually looks like to step into what's next, and why our boobs are hitting our knees. If you've ever looked at your life and thought, wait, is this it, girl, you're in the right place. Because midlife isn't the end of your story, it's the moment you start paying attention to it. So take a breath and let's talk about what's really going on and what you want to do with it. Because, sister, you are not done yet. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of Not Done Yet, a podcast for midlife women. Y'all, tell me why I was awake five times last night. Uh-huh. Yeah. I feel like my party time is between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Am I is that is it just me? I just I feel like that's the time of night where my body is like, oh, hey, Rach, guess what? Like it's time to be awake and worry about all the things that you could really worry about ever. And I don't, I don't love it, but something that has happened is I decided that I was going to start reading when I woke up. Okay. Which is great. Great way to try and get your mind to stop racing and to fall back asleep. Except, you guys, I feel like I've trained myself now that I get to continue reading at between 2 and 4 a.m. So it's almost like my body has decided that's just now what we do. And frankly, that's not okay. You know what I'm saying? Like this is not okay. And y'all, I take progesterone. I we'll talk about this in another episode because today's episode is not about HRT, but I feel like I could talk about it for hours. I am on hormone replacement therapy and I take estrogen and I take progesterone. And I still, well, before February, I was still getting my periods regularly. Okay. Haven't had one since February. And that's a whole thing in itself. Like, I don't know how I feel about this because I feel as if this means like you truly are an old lady now. But I know I'm not officially in menopause until I haven't had a period for 12 months, but I don't know. Is it just me? Is it just me that you were a little bit sad when you you stop your periods? I don't know. It's not like I want to go get pregnant, but somehow it feels so final. So final. But then I need to remind myself that I am not done yet, right? I'm not done yet. So anyway, I thought the progesterone was supposed to help you sleep, but I'm still awake. And and riddle me this. So I sleep with my watch on so that I can track my sleep. And even though I wake up 95 times, I still get okay scores for my sleep. So you must really have to sleep badly in order for you to get a bad score. I the jury is out on this one too. I'm not sure that I'm really getting good sleep. I think, I think my Apple Watch is lying. But that's not what we are discussing today. Okay. Today we are discussing how nobody told us that this is what midlife would be like. And maybe not even that it was someone else's responsibility to tell us. But like we didn't expect midlife to be like this. Because there's this, I don't know, I feel like we knew that this time was coming, but we're so busy raising kids, taking care of our families, maybe getting divorced, working in a crazy job that it's not like we sit around and think, okay, I wonder what midlife will be like. But then it comes and we're all like, what just happened? What is happening? And this has happened for me several times. I think the most recent was me when I turned, I was turning 50. And I think I started thinking, is this it for me? Like, when will people stop really following me? Or when will people stop paying to for me to be their coach? Like, when will people stop interacting with me on Instagram and TikTok? Is there a time period where you're just too old and people aren't interested in you anymore? You're like, you're not relevant. And that was kind of one of those things that was kind of going through my mind. And then I thought, you know what, that's BS, Rach. Like, what lies are you telling yourself? Because, y'all, we bring experience. Okay, we bring experience to the table. We have wisdom that those young kids don't have. And I love it. And I love it. But last night I was at a happy hour with some other midlife women. It was so fun, by the way. And we were just talking about what midlife is like. And all of us are in some sort of transition. For me, I'm transitioning into, you know, this new world of midlife mentorship for women. Others are newly divorced or they're navigating life now as they approach retirement without a spouse. Others are going through the transition of their children moving away or going to college. There are so many different types of transitions. One friend, dear friend, has just retired at like age 51 or 52. Y'all, there are so many transitions, and transition isn't a bad thing at all. Transition can be a great thing. I love transitions, but it they don't they come with their own challenges, right? And I think maybe that's what midlife is. Midlife is sort of this time of transition where we go, wait a second, we aren't needed the way we were needed before. Because let's think about it. I mean, in my story, is that I was a teacher for nine years. So out of college, I got a job teaching, taught for nine years. I got married really young. I got married right out of college. So, but we didn't have kids for eight years. And then in my 30s, I became a mom. And pretty much that was my life and has been since, right? I mean, I built businesses, all the things, but ultimately I was the caretaker. I was raising my children. All three are, you know, neurodivergent, which brings its own set of challenges. And so that's what I was. And now that my kids don't need me the way that they needed me, there's been an identity shift for me. Also, I decided to leave my partnership of seven years to go out on my own. And then as I navigated that business on my own, I realized wait a second, I don't think I'm meant to be coaching network marketers and MLMers anymore. And so that's a big transition. It's all very weird. It's all very weird. And I have to say, this is a new world. This I was talking to someone um last night, and she said, it feels like I'm starting over. And it does feel like that to a degree, right? I mean, we aren't starting over because we we're bringing so much experience and wisdom to it. Yes, we have wisdom, y'all. But it is weird. It's just a new stage of life. And I think there's some grief that comes with it. Am I wrong? Like, am I grieving the fact that I'm not getting my period anymore? I don't know about that. I was talking to my girls about that last night. They're like, I don't know why you'd be sad about that, mom. And I mean, I feel that because nobody likes their period. I mean, I've never met anyone that's met likes their period. Okay. But weirdly, I'm kind of sad about it. I don't, I don't, maybe I need to go to counseling for that. Maybe I need some therapy around that, but it's just, it's weird. That okay, I think that should be the name of this episode. Like it's just weird. Midlife is weird. Would you agree with me? It's just weird. There are all these big feelings and emotions that we are having as we navigate this stage of life. And so many, we're all in different stages. We're all we're in midlife, but we're all have going through different changes. Some of us are in perimenopause, some of us are in menopause. I think I'm, I think I'm considered still in peri. I some of us have kids who are still at home in an elementary school, while others have kids who are getting married. It's we're all at all, it's just crazy. It's crazy town. Um, but chances are we're all lying awake at 2 or 3 a.m. Like we should have a party. We should have a party. We should just all hang out. I'm listening, I'm just putting it out there. If you're interested, just DM me and tell me. And we'll have like a little group chat going on during that time. Because we're we probably are all hanging out at that, like awake, and you know, and I get it. And that's not my favorite thing. But if we're all lying awake, why don't we just hang out? Now, when you're lying awake, sometimes you might have some thoughts. Well, I tend to have lots of them if I'm not reading a romanticy. Okay. And those thoughts are, gosh, I mean, where do I begin with those thoughts, right? We worry about our kids, we worry about our jobs, we worry about, and it's always worrying for me. I obviously listen, we're gonna get really real up in here, and y'all are gonna get to know me super well. Um, but I do take Zoloft. Thank you, Jesus, for Zoloft. It makes me very happy. Well, it doesn't, it's not a happy pill, but I mean, it definitely makes everyone else around me happier because I am less up and down. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, but I still worry. And I I I honestly, I think a lot about this podcast. I think a lot about how I can help other women in this stage of life. You know, I was speaking to someone last week. I was coaching her. She's a midlife woman who is kind of at that stage of life where it's kind of like, what is next for me? What's next? She had these great ideas and some exciting things she wanted to pursue, but she kept dismissing herself. And we're gonna talk about that in a later episode, just how we dismiss ourselves all the time. But I think sometimes maybe that's what you're thinking about when you lie awake, like what's next? Or what if? I don't know. I would love to hear from you. But here's the thing, and and I just want to say this all of this is normal. All of the things that we're feeling, they're all normal. They're not fun, but they're normal, right? And sometimes it is really exciting, sometimes it's super fun. And like I joke that we are queen agers because we are we feel like teenagers, we have, but we have the confidence of, you know, women our age, queens. Okay. I mean, we wake up and we're like, why do I hurt all over? I didn't work out yesterday. But y'all, we are queen agers. And I just feel like this stage of life is so different and fun, but also weird, right? Just weird. And we're trying all the things, but it's all normal. It's all normal. We're trying new things, we're not trying new things, we're questioning where we are, we're not questioning where we are, we're going through perimenopause, we're already in menopause. There it's all normal. Our boobs are really long, our boobs have been lifted, right? Our faces are jerping, our faces have had a facelift. You have a vagina neck, me too. Maybe someone else has had a necklift. Like, but we all are navigating this weird stage of life. And yeah, I think we need to have a discussion later about the vagina neck. I was talking to these ladies last night and I said, I have a vagina neck, and they didn't know what that was. Do you know what that is? I learned it from TikTok, so it's real, but my neck does look a little bit like a vagina, and I'm not okay with that. I'm not okay with that. But I don't really know what the solution is there. So here's here's what I want you to take away from today's episode. Not that I have a vagina neck, but if that's what you sticks with you, then awesome. But what you are going through, whatever transition you are going through, whatever change, whatever feeling you are having, it's all completely normal. This is just normal. You're not broken, you're not ungrateful. I think that happens sometimes when we think, gosh, you know, when is it my turn? Or what's next for me? Someone actually said a client was actually talking to me about that. She said, When is it my turn? And I feel so guilty for thinking that. But for so long, I have been there for everybody else. I have been everything to everybody else. But when do I get to be everything for me? When is it my turn? And then she said, but then I feel ungrateful. Like I'm not, I don't love that that's that was my role. I chose that role. I chose to be a mom. I chose to be, you know, taking care of my parents. I chose, I chose, I chose. But then we have this feeling like, wait, what about me? And then we think, oh my gosh, how selfish. Why are we thinking about ourselves? But y'all, it is our turn because we are not done yet. And we have done the things. We've done all the things. Y'all, we are freaking amazing. Think of all the things that you have done, the way you have shown up for your family, for your kids, for your parents, for your boss, for your coworkers, for your team, whatever it is. Think about all the ways you show up every single day. It's your turn, sister. It's your turn. Okay. You're not having a crisis. You're not having you, you're not, like I said, you're not broken. You haven't lost everything. Girl, you are waking up because here's what I want to say. Y'all, most of us listening are Gen Xers. We know, we know things. We've been through things, right? We are resilient. We are so freaking resilient. We are strong. I was gonna say a bad word, but we are strong. Do you know what I'm saying? We are that's something that I was struck by last night at my at this happy hour. Like we've all walked through some shite, but we are showing up to life every single day. And maybe it's to some happy hours where we can, you know, have a couple of drinks. So you, my friend, are freaking amazing, and you are a strong, incredible woman. And this weird time of transition or whatever it is for you is a powerful time. And I really want to encourage you to embrace this, to really step into this time of transition. And I something that I see a lot, and I'm I mentioned this earlier that we're gonna go into this in another episode, but we dismiss ourselves so readily, so readily. And we get in our own way. We we prevent ourselves from moving forward because you know what else? We've walked through a lot of things, and with that, we've picked up some baggage. Okay, we've got some baggage that we're carrying along the way. Yeah. And those bags, some of them are really heavy. Some of them just look heavy and they're not. But with that baggage, we've also discovered that there are things that are challenging us. We are questioning things. We are dismissing ourselves and being like, no, you couldn't do that. Y'all, it has taken me a long time to step into this sort of space of being more of a life coach, I guess, and really helping midlife women stop dismissing themselves and recognizing what is next for them and validating their ideas and all the things. It's taken me a long time to get here. And not just because I haven't been in midlife very long, because I have. I believe midlife is like 40, 44, 45 till what, 60 something. And when I'm 60-something, I'll be like, nope, midlife is still 80. But I just I feel like this this has been a big pivot for me because and a scary one, because it's not a clear path. I'm sort of forging my own way again. And it's scary, but I'm doing it because I refuse to sit in a space where I don't feel fulfilled. And I really hope that that's the case for you too, because I really want you to see and recognize that you are meant for more. You are not done yet. That's why this, I this is a movement, y'all. Not done yet. Not done yet, not done yet. We're gonna have experiences. We're gonna have, we're just we are not done yet. And we are starting this movement together. I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop because I love this. I could talk about this for hours. You want to go out for drinks and talk about it? Because I'm down for that too. Hey, I'm really excited that you're here. And listen, I would love it if you would share this podcast with other midlife friends. Let's get them all on board for this not done yet movement. Let's make some freaking movement. Let's just make some massive impact in this world because listen, midlife women are not women you want to mess with. Okay, we are making, we are making waves. And they're freaking huge. I am so happy that you are here. So genuinely grateful that you are listening. I will be back here for the next episode of Not Done Yet. Until then, my friends, take care. And remember, girl, you are not done yet.