Karen Baar

One week after my fiftieth birthday, my life went into free fall. My husband of nearly thirty years left me “to have some time for himself.” Three weeks later, I discovered this was no temporary separation (as he had claimed) because he’d been having an affair for months.

Even as I tried to cope with this stunning blow, the other demands on me--trying to comfort my daughters, adapting to joint custody, changing relationships with my parents and friends, meeting work deadlines and learning to be a single parent and a solo homeowner--didn’t stop. I was also in perimenopause, with insomnia and hot flashes making matters worse.

Everything about my life, which had seemed so secure, was suddenly up for grabs. Rudderless, I faced soul-searching questions: How do I see myself? What is important to me? What do I want out of my career? How will I shape the second half of my life? The emotional turbulence, compounded by the hormonal changes of menopause, often made me feel as if I were going through a second adolescence.

One year later, at a combination birthday and “I-made-it-through the first year” party I gave for fifteen other women, I realized I wasn’t alone, nor were my questions only the result of my divorce. As we talked late into the night, I understood that, whether prompted by a life crisis, or merely ready for a change, we fifty-something women are looking back at our life experiences, re-evaluating where we are, and taking a critical look at the possible scripts for our futures.

It isn’t always easy. As we have all along, our generation of women is breaking new ground. Thanks to the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, we’ve questioned and rejected the traditional images and roles accepted by our mothers and generations of women before them. Because we didn't do what our mothers did, we have to create our post-50 roles as we go along.

In For My Next Act..., I look at the challenges and opportunities facing women as we struggle to come to grips with our own mortality, unrealized dreams, empty nests, aging parents, and raging hormones. Using my own emotional story as a jumping off point, I also include the personal stories of scores of midlife women and interviews with experts--including medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, social scientists, and researchers on aging and adult development to offer readers a clear-eyed perspective on the way life changes for women as our roles and relationships evolve.

From my research and interviews, I’ve realized that most women emerge from their fifties feeling better about themselves, experiencing higher levels of happiness and satisfaction than women at all other stages of life. Yes, the hormones, the departing children, the successes, the failures, and the urge to fulfill undeveloped parts of ourselves are all colliding, forcing us to reckon with our lives. But the good news is that for most of us, life’s second act is not a winding down but rather a complex new beginning--which often turns out to be even more fulfilling than the first act.

Like me, the 50-something women in the pages of this book are excited, ambitious, and full of creative ideas. Some have concrete plans for the next act of their lives, while others are still figuring out the path. What they have in common, though, is that each is optimistically focused on the future. Growing up as the first major wave of emancipated women, we’re still breaking ground today. I hope this book encourages readers to plunge bravely into this time of life and become the heroines of their own stories.