50 Things at 50
50 Things at 50 is a midlife memoir about finding purpose when the past cannot be fixed. The fifty experiences give the year its shape. Beneath them is a story of family estrangement, forgiveness without reconciliation, inner dialogue and accountability, the courage to become a beginner, and learning to let go of control.
The Origin
Five Themes at the Heart of the Memoir
Beneath the experiences were five things I kept coming back to:
-
Family estrangement and unresolved endings
-
Forgiveness without reconciliation
-
Inner dialogue and accountability
-
The courage to become a beginner
-
Letting go of control in midlife
Fifty Things
Fifty Things, for 50 Years of Life
To mark that milestone, I started a list with about ten ideas at first, some terrifying and some long overdue. I trusted the rest to show themselves once I got moving. Each became a doorway into questions about who I was and what a good life looks like. This is the honest record of that year and the moments of clarity that defined a new decade and changed how I saw most things.
How I Lived It
I'm not handing you a map. I'm telling you what happened, as straight as I can, in case it's useful to somebody standing where I was standing.
I leaned on four simple practices that kept me grounded when everything felt uncertain. They were ways of paying attention to life in real time. These practices became the backbone of the Becoming experiment, and this book is where you see them start. Through these rhythms, I found a way to navigate the silence of starting over.
When the year ended, I wasn't finished. It left me with a question: what if we lived this way every day? '50 Things at 50' tells how I arrived there. Becoming is what happens next. That's the point where getting through the day turned into choosing what the day was for.
The Story Behind the Book
A brief glimpse into the experiences, losses, risks, and unexpected moments that became 50 Things at 50.
EARLY READERS
What Early Readers Are Saying
“Starting over doesn’t mean you failed. It might mean you finally started paying attention.” (Kim Wilch, Goodreads)
"If he can get through his darkest moments in life and come out in the light... reading this could help me." - Crystal Mentzer
“An honest, ego-stripped account of what happens when your foundation crumbles and you have to rebuild from the ground up.” (Anthony Brooks, Goodreads)
Find the Book & Hear the Story.
WITF · The Spark
Asia Tabb, host and producer of WITF’s The Spark, talks with Chuck Waters about 50 Things at 50, a memoir that began with new experiences and grew into a story of loss, family, accountability and starting again. WITF’s radio signals serve a 19-county region across Central Pennsylvania.
Begin Here
If You’d Like to Start the Story
50 Things at 50 is the record of the year everything fell away, written as honestly as I know how. If you’re standing in your own moment of unraveling, this is where we meet. Walk through the year with me and see what happens when the life you planned stops being available.