At the end of January, I turn 50…I’ve tested the number out loud a few times, just to see how it sounds. It lands differently than 49, that is for sure. Not in a scary way. More in a “wow, this is real” kind of way. Like when you look at a calendar and realize the month is almost over, even though you swear it just started yesterday. I mean…I don’t look 50 do I? I sure feel it somedays but when I was a teenager 50 was OLD!
And right around the same time I will be stepping into 50, I also hit another milestone in early January: 27 years in Multifamily. Twenty-seven years.
That’s a lot of cycles, a lot of change, a lot of learning, and a lot of relationships built in an industry that never stops moving. I’ve also spent my career on the supplier and investor side of Multifamily, which means I have had a front row seat to the business from a different angle than property operations. I was not collecting keys or handling move-ins, but I have absolutely been in the rooms where the pressure is real, the decisions are big, and the ripple effects hit real people.
If you’ve worked anywhere in Multifamily long enough, you know it’s a unique world. It’s fast, it’s intense, it’s full of smart, resilient people, and it can change your nervous system in ways that probably deserve their own medical code. It’s also an industry that teaches you quickly how to adjust, how to solve problems, and how to keep moving without losing your humanity. I love this industry and the people in it!
Turning 50 also has me thinking about what all these years have meant, not just professionally, but personally too. If I’m being honest, the past year has done more to shape that reflection than anything else in my life.
This last year did not come in quietly. I have had health issues that forced me to slow down and pay attention in a way I don’t naturally enjoy. I’m the type who can push through almost anything, and my body finally decided it was done negotiating. It sent a very clear message, and it didn’t put it in a polite email.
At the same time, I have lost several friends and family members, all my age or younger. That is the kind of grief that hits differently, because it is not something you can file away as “life eventually.” It is life, right now. It is a reminder that time is not something we get to assume. It is something we get to use, and hopefully use well, because it is a diminishing resource.
Then there is the adult children drama…I love my kids more than I can explain, but I also want to talk to whoever created the phrase “adult children,” because sometimes it feels like the “adult” part is more of a suggestion than a guarantee. How do we spend most of their lives wanting the next thing for them, and then they become adults and you just want them to be the innocent (opinion-free) little kids they were when you were the center of their universe. The situations are rarely small, the emotions are rarely quiet, and the way it can pull your energy is honestly impressive. If you know, you know.
This past year has held a lot, and it has changed me. Not in a way that makes me hardened, but in a way that makes me possess more clarity than ever.
As I approach 50, the biggest shift I feel is this: I am finally treating my energy like it’s valuable. Not valuable in the vague, motivational-poster way. Valuable in the real way, like time, like health, like money. Valuable enough to protect.
For a long time, I’ve been generous with my energy. I’ve poured it into work, relationships, commitments, and problem-solving. That’s part of who I am, and it’s also part of what has made me successful. But somewhere along the line, it became too easy to hand my energy to things that drained me, and too normal to recover in private and call it “just being busy.”
Now I’m working toward a different approach. I want to spend my energy on people and projects that are positive and worth the time and energy, the kind of things that make you feel proud and alive instead of depleted. I want to invest in the people who bring good into the room and who value spending their energy on me too. Reciprocity is not a luxury. It is the minimum. I am not interested in one-way relationships, one-way effort, or one-way loyalty anymore…time as a resource feels much more crunched than it used to be.
The other shift is that I’m focusing even tighter on the things I can control, and letting go of what I cannot. I can control my choices. I can control how I show up. I can control my boundaries. I can control the standard I set for how people get access to my time and attention. I can control whether I keep replaying things that already happened or keep chasing outcomes that were never mine to decide.
What I can’t control, I‘m learning to release faster. Not because I don’t care, but because caring doesn’t require self-sacrifice. And because I have learned the hard way that there are plenty of things in life that will demand your energy if you let them. The question is whether you will keep paying for them.
So this is what 50 looks like for me as it approaches: not a crisis, not a dramatic reinvention, and definitely not a moment where I suddenly start taking myself too seriously.
It’s more like a renewal…
Same person, better terms…trying the extended warranty 🙂
More laughter. More boundaries. More intention. More focus on what matters. More time with the people who feel like home. More work that feels aligned. Less energy wasted on things that drain me and do not deserve the space.
If I’ve learned anything in 27 years in Multifamily, especially on the supplier and investor side, it’s that the best outcomes happen when you pay attention to what is actually working, you stop throwing resources at what isn’t, and you make decisions that support the long term. Turns out that applies to life too.
So yes, I’m turning 50 at the end of January…and I’m walking into it with gratitude, with a little bit of humor, and with a whole lot more respect for the most limited resource I have.