We Outside

Forty Fifty; Volume 79

First, welcome to all of our new subscribers. Forty Fifty has been growing steadily, and I’m so grateful you’re here. What started as a small idea has slowly become a real community, and I don’t take that lightly.

A little about me if you’re new. I’m a designer and writer, a mom, a partner, a feminist, and someone who thinks a lot about how we move through this season of life. Forty Fifty exists because I don’t believe midlife is about fading out. I think it’s formative. I think it matters. I think we deserve language and community around it.

Me on my solo journey last summer in Greece.

Last week I gave a talk in Cambridge, MA connected to my book. It was about responsibility and how we live inside systems together. The big question was: What do we owe each other? It felt so good to be in a room full of people thinking out loud, pushing ideas around, lingering over dinner. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed that kind of stimulation.

Living in the rural seaside after years in the city has changed me. I’ve been thinking a lot about the word rewilding. In nature, it means restoring land so it can take care of itself again. Not controlling it, just letting it find its own balance. I keep thinking about that in terms of alignment. It’s easy to drift. To say yes when we mean maybe. To move at a pace that looks impressive but doesn’t actually feel good. To override the quiet signals in our bodies because there’s too much to take care of.

But the body always keeps the score.

When we’re in alignment, things line up. What we value matches how we spend our time. Our energy matches our commitments. We feel steadier. Not perfect. Just steady.

We outside.

Urban Dictionary defines it as a New York catchphrase about being active and making moves rather than sitting inside doing nothing. I love the direct simplicity of it. Post-Covid and in the beginning of an AI revolution, it carries something deeper. The desire to be among one another, in the elements, in our bodies, in the present. To step out of the interior loop of screens and spirals. To be alone but not lonely. To be together in ways that feel true. Midlife makes this blurry. We can be exhausted and call it rest when we’re really just retreating. We can say we want solitude when what we really need is connection. Or the opposite.

This week I also went skiing for the first time in years. I almost didn’t go because it felt like too much work for one day. But once I was there, in the cold air, focused, I remembered how good it feels to be fully in something. My knees were loud about it the next day, but still. I was in the elements and out of my head.

Now I’m writing this by the fire during a blizzard. No power. No heat. The usual structure of the day has fallen away. There’s something clarifying about that. When the grid goes down, you notice what actually holds.

Midlife feels elemental to me. Hormones. Kids. Aging parents. Career shifts. Energy changes. It’s all weather. We can fight it. Or we can learn to move with it.

So maybe the question isn’t how to control this season. Maybe it’s Where are you drifting out of alignment? Where do you need real rest instead of distraction? What would it look like to step outside — in whatever way feels true?

In community,

Ali, Forty Fifty

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