Are You Part of the IDGAF Club?

If you've stopped explaining yourself, you're already in.

• I quit a perfectly good career at 31 to start a business nobody thought was a good idea.

• I packed up and moved abroad at 38 with a 4-year-old and no plan.

• I’ve sold everything I own, several times over.

• I’ve started, succeeded and failed more businesses that most have had hot dinners

• I’ve recently become a full-time nomad in my 50s, living out of a carry-on bag with no fixed address and no intention of getting one.

None of that was always so popular with people around me. But I did it all anyway.

So when people ask me if your 50s are when you stop caring what people think, my honest answer is no. We’ll probably always care a little. It’s what makes us human.

But my 50s has changed something. I’ve just stopped explaining.

In my 30s I’d make a big decision and then spend weeks justifying it to everyone around me. In my 40s I’d still explain, but a bit quicker. By my 50s I just... stopped.

Not because I was suddenly gifted with swathes of courage. But when you start to realise the time ahead might be shorter than the time behind, you’ll quickly run out of interest in making sure everyone else is comfortable with your choices.

What the IDGAF Club Looks Like

If you’re in the club, you’ll know. It looks like this:

• It’s wearing whatever you want and not thinking twice about it. Gym top, flip flops, no makeup, hair doing its own thing. Life continues.

• It’s not having a clue what the latest trend is on TikTok or the most watched TV program on Netflix and not giving a hoot!

• It’s dancing around your living room to Fleetwood Mac or Michael Jackson like it’s 1982 and you’ve got nowhere to be…

• It’s JOMO! Saying no to the thing everyone else is going to and spending the evening in your pyjamas instead, and it being one of the best nights of your week.

• It’s realising the time ahead might be shorter than the time behind, and instead of that scaring you, it making you dance more, laugh louder, say the thing and book the trip. You’ve stopped waiting for the right moment because there isn’t one.

• It’s trusting yourself. Your gut. Your instincts. The quiet voice that always knew what it wanted but kept getting drowned out by everyone else’s opinions.

• It’s being completely and unapologetically comfortable in your own skin.

The Many Membership Perks of the IDGAF Club

The wonderful thing about getting older is that for every annoying thing your body throws at you, there’s a perk you weren’t expecting.

And some of them are brilliant.

For starters, “no” becomes a complete sentence.

My 19-year-old daughter has been telling me this for years. (She’s an old soul, that one. It took me about three decades longer than her to figure it out). But she’s right.

You stop saying yes to things your whole body is screaming no at, and you stop writing three-paragraph justifications for perfectly reasonable decisions.

And quite frankly, menopause-fuelled irritability helps. Hard to people-please when you haven’t got the patience for it.

Nothing Left to Prove

You also lose any desire to prove yourself. I did a 3-day hike through Pati Valley in Chapada Diamantina recently, and on Day 2, my guide gently suggested I skip the steep castle climb with all the twenty-somethings and head to the waterfalls instead.

Old me would have pushed through just to show I could. This me didn’t need asking twice. We clambered over rocks and swam in waterfalls and it was one of the best days of the trip.

Don’t get me wrong, I still want to push myself and stay young and vital, but I’m happy to do so enjoyably, without the need to impress anyone along the way.

No Approval Needed

At some point you also stop needing a committee for every decision.

My Dad used to tell me off for this in my 20s. Always seeking approval, always needing someone to tell me I was making the right call. He told me I needed to trust myself more.

He passed almost twenty years ago now, but I think he’d be pleased to know I finally listened. These days I just do the thing. Decades of getting it right, and at times spectacularly wrong, have given me all the evidence I need.

Your give-a-damn list shrinks too. You used to care about a hundred things, like leaving the house without makeup or whether someone had texted you back.

Now you know people are busy, your face is your face, and life goes on.

The Golden Ticket

One of the best perks by far though is the glorious knowledge that no-one gives a damn who you are anymore (I’m not talking about friends and loved ones).

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way I became completely invisible. It might have been the time a barman completely skipped me in the queue at a bar in Spain, or when I got totally ignored at the souk in Morocco.

At first it was disconcerting, (especially when you want a drink). But then I realised what an absolute blessing it is.

No catcalls or unsolicited opinions. Nobody worried about what you look like or what you’re wearing. You just move through the world, unseen and unbothered. It is, the golden ticket of age (for females anyway).

We Are the Champions

And last but by no means least, there’s the quiet, unshakeable, and completely correct knowledge that the best music ever made came from the 70s and 80s.

We got to listen to it on vinyl, make mixed tapes, and hover over the pause button on the radio trying to catch our favourite songs. Every generation thinks their music was the best, obviously. We just happen to be right. (Shhh, don’t tell the Gen Zs.)

The Membership Fees

Of course, every club has its fees. Nobody tells you about them when you sign up, they just start showing up.

My knees are slowly falling apart. I could keep them at bay by going to the gym and strengthening my legs, but getting me there is like getting a teenager out of bed on a Saturday.

I know I need to. I will tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. So the last hike I did absolutely destroyed me and I spent two days afterwards walking around like a woman twice my age.

My eyesight, which has been rubbish since my 20s, has decided to add a new trick. I can see far away just fine, but hold anything closer than arm’s length and it’s a blur.

I now read menus like a trombone player, sliding them back and forth until the words come into focus.

And then there’s the bloody menopause, which arrived less like a chapter and more like a hostile takeover.

Brain fog so thick some days I can’t finish a sentence, let alone a paragraph. I sit down to work and absolutely nothing happens, I just stare at the screen like it owes me money.

I used to smash through a to-do list like a speed round on Supermarket Sweep. Now some days the list wins. And the mood swings have me wanting to argue with inanimate objects.

Your fees will look different to mine.

• Maybe your knees are fine but your back's gone.

• Maybe you sleep like a baby but can't remember why you walked into a room.

• Maybe you've sailed through menopause but your metabolism has decided to retire without telling you.

We've all got a list. The details change, the comedy doesn't.

These are the fees. And if you’ve read the perks, you know they’re worth every creaky, foggy, trombone-playing one of them.

Welcome to the Club

The IDGAF Club isn’t something you join in your 50s. For some of us it started decades ago. Your 50s just turned down the noise.

The explaining stops. The apologising stops. The pretending you’re someone more sensible stops.

And yes, your body throws in a few curveballs you didn’t ask for. But even those come with a strange kind of freedom.

When your knees hurt and your brain fogs up and you can’t read a menu without holding it at arm’s length, the stuff that never really mattered? It really, truly stops mattering.

And you’re left with the stuff that does.

The friendships. The freedom. The adventures. The people you love. And a much shorter list of things you’re willing to waste energy on.

If any of that sounds familiar, welcome. You’ve likely been a member longer than you think.

And if you’re not quite there yet, keep going. The membership fee is just time and a growing unwillingness to put up with anything that doesn’t serve you.

You’ll know you’ve arrived when someone asks why you made a decision and your only answer is “because I wanted to.”