I lost touch with my inner chief executive somewhere around 1995.

OPINION: I rest my foamy hands on the edge of the sink.

"What?" I say, incredulous.

"Yes," nods my mother-in-law,

"50 years this month."

"Your 50th wedding anniversary?" I pause.

Isn't this the biggest anniversary there is? I gaze at them, in awe.

"Can you believe it's been 50 years?"

My father-in-law looks over the bridge of his glasses.

"It feels like 100," he says.

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My husband knows it, and I know it. We're unlikely to make 50 years and if we do, one of us could be drinking Champagne from an IV bag.

This is because, like our entire age group, it took us at least one decade (yes: the whole of the 90s) before we could commit ourselves to anything. Add another decade if you did arts at university.

I was 38 and my husband was 39 when we met.

He'd spent his 20s bobbing around on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf or South China Sea.

Meanwhile I was toiling away on the minimum wage in the English Midlands, working for a government magazine called Young People Now and measuring out my life in Walnut Whips. In other words, we were too busy doing the wrong jobs in the wrong countries to meet, marry and raise a family.

Unlike today's 20-somethings, who seem to be just dandy marrying their first serious love interests, raising chemical-free children and pedalling to work on folding bicycles, my peers slouched towards proper jobs and relationships. We grudged ourselves there, like a fat labrador dragged to the vet.

I was reminded of this not too long ago on Cuba St.

Six of us were in a hip, new place; the kind where they serve drinks in jam jars and act like they invented it (look up Depression, the Great).

We'd just been to a former flatmate's wake; we were dazed and disbelieving that anyone could be dead at 43, let alone our lovable, warm-hearted friend. We were going to wash down the lumps in our throats with, I don't know, sauvignon? Pinot gris? Craft beer?

Wait a second – who was driving? And what time did we tell the babysitter...?

The waitress rested her weight on one foot and all but rolled her eyes. She was barely 30 but you could tell she was decisive, simply from her choice of tattoos.

She listened to us chitter and squawk ("Shall we get two bottles for the table? One red, one white? Or only one?"), exhaled upwards through her fringe and finally interrupted with a stern suggestion, which implied no disagreement. Then she scribbled down her own order and stomped off to the kitchen.

"And this," said Hamish, grandly, "is why Generation X never came to anything."

Oh, early- to mid-40-somethings! I adore you, I do. We haven't amounted to much in comparison to, say, Millennials (Mark Zuckerberg, Taylor Swift, Lydia Ko) or Boomers (Tim Berners-Lee, Meryl Streep, Bob Dylan) or dead people (Felix Mendelssohn, Marie Curie) but there's still time, right? Still time?

One or two of us have broken the ribbon like a champ. Justin Trudeau, for example, with his cheekbones and his flopsy hair, champion of feminism, electoral reform and fuzzy animals. There isn't a gay man or a straight woman on God's green earth who didn't wish they'd been a panda cub sitting on his groin that day. (Look up Canadian Premier, hotness of).

But for the most part, Generation Xers have achieved quiet victories – for example, I believe it was the 40- something urban man who brought back the straw trilby. We've got some money and enjoy small comforts; our tents have bedroom compartments and we fly premium economy. We've acquired style and taste; when we serve salad at dinner, we toss pomegranate seeds in it.

It's odd, really, that we chose to take the winding, scenic road to our middle years. I was incredibly goal-focused in my teens but probably listened to too much Tori Amos, or something, because I lost touch with my inner chief executive somewhere around 1995 and stopped making self-advancing decisions.

I temped. I dreamed. I ate from packet mixes.

Like many friends I didn't enjoy my first career-style job until my 30s. I squeaked into marriage, home ownership and children by my 40s.

Hard to believe I'm a high-achieving Virgo, isn't it? (Mind you, I don't really trust the zodiac in this regard. A virgin? Really? In fact, Virgoans may be why the HPV vaccine was invented.)

And yet, history may favour late-bloomers. Here I am, 44, and having the most fun I've ever had at work. And Hamish? He's now mayor of his hometown of Whanganui, last seen on Facebook in a Santa Parade, waving from a pumpkin-style coach.

If that's not a fairytale finish, what is?