74. The Music of Midlife

Midlife, menopause and music. Is this the new trifecta for women over 40?

Lovely people, you are in for a treat, because this is a special two-for-one episode just for you.

Here I was, thinking this was going to be a solo show filled with my musings about the loss of our common culture. And then guess what? A lovely woman named Monique Cupid, who just so happens to be doing work in the midlife space, won More Beautiful's "Name that '80s Song" contest and a walk-on interview on the podcast. Monique is founder of The Midlife Glow Chaser and co-founder of Life in the Pause, a movement and festival aimed at women who are embracing their second act. So you can imagine how much Monique and I had to chat about. We started off talking about her exemplary song-recognition skills, reminiscing about those always-in-our-hearts '80s tunes that marked our youth, and exchanging notes about the music we're digging right now. Then, we touched on a bit of neurological research that's always intrigued me: how the songs we listened to during adolescence will always elicit within us a strong emotional response, for better or worse. After confirming that music will always play an important part in our lives, we segued into the topic of midlife, the work Monique is doing to help women see the wonderful side of aging, and why she actually feels giddy thinking about the menopause transition.

Before my banter with the lovely Monique, I do a little solo ruminating about a related topic. Lately I've been waxing nostalgic about how our generation was probably the very last to experience a monoculture—a shared pop culture that unites our generation. This common culture is what enables most Gen Xers, for example, to sing along together to the biggest hits of the '80s, or recite lines from our generation’s most memorable films. This is something subsequent generations will know less and less about. In this AirPods Age, we are having fewer communal cultural experiences. How we consume music and films and television and books has changed drastically. These days, we’re all plugged into our individual realities and curating our own media experiences. We're listening to our own playlists, and selecting our own television shows and news and articles and films and books from a much larger pool of content than ever before.

What does this mean for subsequent generations? What does this mean for humankind? Is there any glimmer of hope as the monoculture becomes a thing of the past? Will we ever again have superstars and blockbusters and bestsellers as our generation knew them? What will bond us together if we no longer have these shared experiences? And is there a positive side to all this?

Another bonus: At the start of this episode you can take a little pop-culture quiz that you'll probably only pass if you're a person "of a certain age." Visit me on Instagram @morebeautifulproject and let me know how you scored! Full show notes available at Morebeautifulproject.com.