I am over 50, but "This Is 40," the new movie starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, empowered me more than any self-help book I've read about middle age and long-term marriage. And I've read a lot.

In my 50s I looked at the walls around me -- marriage, work, lifestyle - and wondered if they were keeping my life together or keeping life out. I know people who seem perfectly content with their lives. That ain't me.

I cried my eyes out the other night watching the movie "You've Got Mail." The scene in which Meg Ryan's character shuts down her mother's bookstore just destroyed me. And, somehow, that particular moment in the movie reminded me of what life has felt like in my 50s.

Midlife crises have long been considered a purely male experience, up there with forgetting to put the toilet seat down or having a hard time talking ...

I think of my own life in my 40's and 50's as being pretty stressful. It didn't occur to me that everyone else in the world was going through the same things.

While we don't get a "do over" when it comes to our youth, we can use much of what we've learned in hindsight to help us live more zestfully in midlife.

Most of us really do not change that much as we age, but our deeper interests might become even more apparent.

I've been pretty darned restless for about six months now and I just haven't been able to shake the feeling. I wasn't sure what to make of this unsettled feeling because I've got a really good life. Then, I received an email from one of my best friends who now lives in London.

I clicked on a website. "Hey," I sat up straight. "Take a look at this." He glanced over, and then his eyes caught. I nodded. He moved closer. "What do you think?" My voice was quiet.

I don't know what I enjoy anymore. I hadn't anticipated that it would ever come up, apparently, because in the grand plan of my life, I didn't plan for this. I knew I wanted to have kids, and I knew I wanted to be a writer. I've done both, yet suddenly they're not enough.

I want her to know that I was not always a middle-aged mom with over-processed hair and fluctuating hormones. I want her to know that her Dad did not always have goofy dance moves.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night jolted by the fact that I am now 50 years old. For a brief moment, I think it's all just a big mistake, a cosmic joke, and that I am really still only 35.

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Have we created a society of "haves" and "have nots" based not so much on how much we have, but on how much we can spend on looking younger?