Tugging on the Sleeves of my Heart
“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
The sun is beginning its ascent on this west coast morning and I have gifted myself the luxury of a lazy morning in bed – reading, writing and beginning this new blog adventure.
I admit, I did consider heading down to my home office and my organized desk but that feels too much like work. Physical space matters a great deal to me and I need the environment for the start of this new journey to feel safe and familiar. I want the comfort of my rumpled bed, a strong cup of French Roast coffee on my night table and cats curled close on this cool morning. I have been contemplating a blog for nearly a year and I need to ensure that this gift to myself is created outside the boundaries of my work life. I need this experience to be fun, joyful and intimate.
But don’t expect my writing to always be joyful! Yes, my posts will be woven with humour, happiness and guilty pleasures but there will also be darkness and sorrow and vulnerability as I explore this path to the edge of elderhood. I hope you will walk with me as I share the stories in my head, question with courage and curiosity and claim the events of my life that have made me who I am.
I love to write. But even more, I love to read. I have been a voracious reader since I was a young child. I continue to read to escape, to learn and to reflect. I devour 2 to 3 books a week, read numerous e-newsletters and will follow a Google thread for hours, delving deeper and deeper into a topic of interest. I also love information and data - in fact, in my work life, one of the labels of expertise I have given myself is that I am an information broker. I know a little bit about a lot of things and I enjoy brokering that knowledge to people who I think would enjoy or benefit. I suspect this practice will seep into my blog posts!
So who am I? I hope you’ll take some time to read a bit more about me in my profile. But the short version, for the purpose of this blog, is that I am a 61-year old woman with all the external trappings of what society considers success – a strong marriage, adult children who I love spending time with, a small circle of loyal friends, financially comfortable and passionate about my work. I have intentionally and with a great deal of effort created ‘my world’. Nature and community feed my soul and we live in a co-housing community close to the ocean. We regularly escape to our island cabin where I spend long hours walking my dog through old growth forests. My life looks pretty perfect. But my internal landscape paints a very different picture. I think that is partly due to being part of this first generation of women who have had to balance children, parents, partner, career and societal expectations. “This is no longer our parents’ generation”, Louise Penny wrote, “now people have so many chapters in their lives”. This is uncharted territory for us as ‘women of a certain age’. We don’t know what is ahead because it has not been lived before, we only know where we have come from. And I expect for many of you, like me, that comes from a place that includes self-doubt, anxiety, fear and guilt.
If you had asked me 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, what I thought my life was going to be like at 60, I would truthfully have answered you that I didn’t see a future for myself. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if I would still be alive at 60. But I’m certainly glad I’m still here now!
Why? Because there is a wondrous freedom to aging! The easy answer is that I really don’t give a shit anymore what people think and societal norms matter less as you age. The reality is that there is a wisdom that comes with getting older and it is so much easier to put things in perspective. I am happier than I have ever been. And yes, some of you will say, no wonder – you have a strong marriage, great kids, good friends and financial stability. Don’t get me wrong, I will never take that for granted, and I am filled with gratitude every day. But what matters more is that I am content with who I am becoming, I have wisdoms to share and truths I want to speak. I have a deep desire to continue my personal growth and to support our collective journey into elderhood. I also have a yearning to belong, to know that there are other women having these similar experiences.
These past 14 months have been rough for me – the death of loved ones, family illnesses and career and life transitions – and there were days when I was at the end of my rope! And yet, as I begin to re-surface, I realize that for many months now, I have been feeling a deep contentment. A contentment that is born from my life’s journey leading me to a maturity and self awareness that I don’t think we achieve until we are women of a certain age.
I have been giving thought to becoming more focused with my writing for over a year, but this dawning realization solidified for me the desire to connect with women who must be walking this same path.
At first, my inner critics hit me hard with doubt. Who was I to think I could write such a blog? There are a plethora of blogs out there in the world! And as my inner critics continued, probably much better written than anything I could produce! Well you know what, there aren’t. Remember I love research and information and I have Googled the hell out of blogs written by women of a certain age! There are informative blogs written by silver vixens (aka, the equivalent of silver foxes), beautiful silver-haired women who post copious amounts of photos of themselves and write about lifestyle, travel, health and beauty. There are wholesome blogs written by women focused on retirement, gardening, baking and family. There are some blogs that nudge the edges of where I want to go, but they usually have more of a midlife focus, aimed at 40-year olds – and here I thought 60 was mid-life! And there are heart-wrenching, deeply moving blogs on parenting, relationships, infidelity, addiction and self-growth that reverberate, however these blogs are more focused and usually aimed at a younger demographic. None of these blogs spoke to me, and I suspect that while these blogs may feed some parts of you, there is still a void.
So I am hoping that Ageless Possibilities will resonate with you. This will not be easy for me. I am deeply private. But I want to share my truths. And I hope you will join me because I suspect my stories are your stories.