Women 40+ without kids - how are you spending your time?
Hello women of Denver! I’m 40 and I’ve lived here for 15 years (bounced between Denver and Boulder twice, but mostly Denver) and am staring down a very difficult choice. Part of that decision making process means envisioning what a semi-childfree (my partner has an elementary aged kiddo 50/50 and doesn’t want another) life would look like in Denver. I didn’t foresee my life going this way when I was 26, or 36 for that matter, but that’s how the cookie crumbled.
To be fully honest, this place has never quite fit my East Coast vibe. I’m from MA and came here by way of NYC and spent the first 25 years of my life around people who were similar energy - it’s not for everyone! Part of the disconnect for me has been that I’m not super outdoorsy - I’ve only done two 14ers in all my time here (I prefer a more casual hike), have camping gear that hasn’t been used in about 4 years, and I only ski on-piste. I’m not the biggest drinker (2 glasses of wine and I have a buzz - cheap date!), and even then, I feel like I aged out of the bar scene about 6 years ago. I go to the occasional 2000s-2010s indie show, dig around in record shops and love to explore new (to me) music, religiously go to the farmers market and love cook with what ever I hauled, and am a regular at a pottery studio.
If you are childfree/childless in Denver, and any of that sounds like the kind of things you’re into, I would love to know what else you are doing here with your peaceful, free lives, your free time, and where you find community with people who either don’t have kids by choice or by circumstances. The pity, concern, or assumption that I have kids is starting to get to me. Women my age get weird when you tell them you don’t have kids - they don’t know how to relate anymore. Truthfully, I’m pretty content. God forbid a middle aged woman be happy without children! Denver feels kinda isolating in some ways if you’re not on the kids-or-outdoor adventure wagon. In my case I feel a little in between childfree and childless, because the *choice* is being forced by the *circumstances* of my age and the fact that this relationship is like 98% perfect for me. Sometimes you have to “round up to The One” as Dan Savage says, and I want to envision what staying here and living my best life could include if I were to make a sacrifice and choose my family rather than create one. TIA!