Self Discovery
My oldest son is 6’3″. He is all legs and when I walk with him in Chicago, where he lives, I am always behind him. I actually have to start skipping to catch up. And one day it hit me that I used to be the one who walked faster than everyone else. He inherited his long legs from me and I used to walk with purpose and at a good clip. Well, I don’t like being The slow poke. I have slowed down a little and I don’t like it one bit. While I embrace my age, I don’t want to be the slowest person in the bunch: that makes me feel old. So, I am purposefully changing that slow walk. Slow is not who I am.
Some of My Friends are Slowing Down
I have friends who seem to have given up. They are kind of coasting through life: not old enough to sit at home and watch reruns of The Price is Right and not working full time any longer. They are moving at a slower pace and it feels as though they are not taking advantage of this great time in our lives. This is the time when we are still able to do most things physically and we have the time to do them. We have the ability to think clearly, for the most part, and we have lives that we might have envied several years ago.
So I do not get the mindset of settling in for the next thirty years. I am filled with anxiety over not having enough time to do everything that I want to do and that thought keeps me awake in the middle of the night sometimes. I know it is crazy I am so anxious to get going on new projects and new opportunities that I honestly can’t sleep.
Be Active While You Can
I was talking with one of my doctors one day not long ago and he was getting ready to have some back surgery. He told me that he and his wife are physically active and that he wants to get his back repaired so he can still do most of the things he loves before his age prevents him from doing it. I couldn’t agree more. With no knowledge of what tomorrow will bring you have to do the things you love now, not coast through one-third of your life. Think about that, one third of your life might be ahead of you. When you hear that stat I hope it gets you motivated to get busy. Be active, volunteer in your community, ride your bike: whatever it is that gets you excited.
And by all means, do not act your age. Act the age you feel inside. Act the age of a woman who has so much life left in her that she can’t take time to play solitaire. You will be amazed at how much fun you can have when you fill your day with activities that you love. Or go back to work doing something that you always wished you could do. Or, retire and go to Europe, just as you had always planned. Keep yourself busy and full of life and others will start to see you as the age you feel as well. They will know you as a person who brings something interesting to the table rather than someone who sits on the sidelines waiting for the game to start. Be the game!
Tell me what you are doing to not act your age. I can’t wait to hear from you.
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Do you ever feel invisible? Here’s a story: a friend had to hire a private detective and a woman who was 50+ was recommended. When she asked why this former police officer was a good detective, the answer was, “No one who walks into a bar notices a woman who is over 50.” Ouch!
Let’s face it, we all feel invisible from time to time but that statement has stuck with me for years. It was depressing to think about. How could I continue to feel good about myself when I felt unnoticed every time I walked into a room full of strangers. But here is what I find to be true: if you carry yourself as if you are invisible, you will be. And, if you don’t, you won’t.
Being worthy of notice isn’t about how young or how beautiful you are. Being noticed is as much in your head as it is about others around you. If you chose to dress like no one should look at you, they won’t. If you chose to carry yourself as if there isn’t anything special about you, there isn’t. For years I felt like I was nothing because I was with a man who made me feel that way and I let him. In the last year, however, I have really come back to my true self and I never feel invisible.
When I walk into a room I want to be noticed, not passed over. I want to look like a confident woman. I want people to see me coming in and say, “Here comes the fun!” And, now I think I do. I am and want t always be, relevant. When you exude liveliness others feel it and it rubs off on them. They have no choice but to notice you.
So, if you are not showing up to your life as a woman who deserves to be seen, who deserves to be noticed, and you want to change that, you know what to do. Make s change. Tell yourself how beautiful you are, how much fun it is to be with you and you will find that others begin to feel the same.
I dare someone not to notice me in a bar. Say it to yourself and soon you will believe it and others will too.
Read MoreWomen are the great re-inventors, it’s true. If there is one quality that sets women apart from men and is one of the keys to remaining happy over a lifetime, it is the ability to re-invent oneself. Certainly, I can name famous women, most of them having one name like Cher, Madonna, Gaga, who have all had several incarnations. Look at Joan Rivers, who started out in stand-up, ended up on a fashion television show and in between ran a jewelry empire. Or how about Martha Stewart who built an empire, was sentenced to prison time then emerged strong after serving that time. The point is that women seem to have the ability to pick themselves up after defeat, assess the damage and then pivot and start over in a new direction.
I have a theory that women are so good at re-invention because their lives biologically are set up that way. Through youth, then motherhood or the reproductive years, followed by menopause, it is biology at its most basic level. We go through so many changes internally that making necessary changes to our lives is already in our DNA.
Think about how many versions of you there have been. Speaking for myself, I was a single woman, then a wife, then a mother, then a single woman again and soon will be a grandmother: all very different stages in life with different expectations. While men’s roles are very clearly defined over the course of their lives, women change roles almost daily. So, is it any wonder that women seem to be more able to handle, and better prepared to deal with, life when it throws them curve balls? Is it a surprise that women seem to thrive on change while men simply do not? No, it is not.
Looking back over my adult life, I was a single woman working in advertising when I met my future husband and no sooner did the minister say, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” I was pregnant. I was having a difficult time finding childcare and wasn’t madly in love with my job, so I stayed at home with that baby and the one who followed. Now I was an at-home mother working as hard at being good in that role as I had at selling advertising time. When I look back at that young woman I wonder what made her feel like she had to be great at everything? It might be that my husband didn’t value my expertise at home as much as he valued my expertise earning a paycheck, but, that is how it was. I went back to work a couple of years later and was now a mother of two baby boys and a daughter on the way, working fulltime outside the home and full time inside the home. Not uncommon. Not complaining, just the truth. When my daughter came along I hung up my working outside the home shoes more permanently and dived into the world of at-home motherhood. Lots of trials along the way and a not so happy marriage lead me to where I am today (there is a lot of stuff in-between but this isn’t a book. Kids grew up and moved on, my marriage finally crumbled, etc.).
Here I am and now I get to start over: I have the chance to wipe the slate clean and really be purposeful with the direction I take. It is already happening in small doses: I live downtown in a one-room loft while my husband insisted on keeping the big house on a country club golf course (this appears to be a win for each of us, illustrating our differences). I love it!
So, back to Madonna and Cher: neither one of them was an actress until their respective singing careers lead them down that path, and the same can be said for Lady Gaga. And, how many hats did Joan Rivers wear over the course of her life? How many hats have you worn? Here is an exercise for you: write down the roles you have played over the course of your life. How many careers, responsibilities and supervisory positions have you been involved in along the way? Can you start over at sixty or beyond? Absolutely, without question. And, you can excel through those changes: you can make your life better.
Not all change is positive and not all change is fun, but change is inevitable, and if you don’t learn to roll with it you will not be able to age happily, that’s just the truth. We must adapt if we want to be happy in our sixties, seventies and beyond. Re-invent, re-prioritize and re-locate if you want to, and learn how much you still have to give to this world. And never stop moving forward.
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If you are starting over and feeling lonely, just remember that you can make new friends at any age. If you think that sounds like work, it is. But, it’s necessary and worthwhile. One thing I realized when I was starting over was that as much as I loved my friends, most of them were married. I was married. We were all married together. And as much as I love them and they are still a huge part of my life, they had a life at home. I did not. We went out together (I am a lucky girl. Most of my friends seem to not mind having me tag along.) and then they went home together and had a family life. My life is not like that anymore.
It wasn’t very long until I figured out that I had to attack this loneliness head-on. Sitting at home crying myself to sleep had to stop. No one was going to find me in my apartment: that’s like sitting in a movie theater waiting to be discovered! So, I found some ways to get to know new people, people who were not part of my past. They know me as I am now. If you need help with loneliness try these tips.
Volunteer
Whether it is faith-based or through your community or is directed where you work, get yourself into some volunteer activity. Not only are you doing something good-hearted, which makes you feel better automatically, you make friends with the people on either side of you. You are working together. You already have something in common, you like to help others. If it is a recurring activity, you will naturally bond with your fellow volunteers and coffee or a glass of wine can’t be far behind. Everyone has a passion for something philanthropic, so get engaged in it and see what happens. You will reap such benefits: you will feel good about what you have accomplished, you will meet new friends, you will fill some time if you are feeling like you have too much isolated time in your new life, and you will let a few more people in the world know that you are single and looking for other opportunities to meet new friends. And, best of all, you spend some time not thinking about yourself, which is an unavoidable byproduct of the turmoil in your life. Bingo!
Take a Class
Want to learn something new? Then, learn it! For me, it’s knitting. I like to knit. I like to take knitting classes. When I take a class I am usually with women around my age so those are new friends. We talk while we knit, so we get to know each other. If we enjoy each other’s company we might get a cup of tea afterward. You may be thinking that you would like to meet some men as well. Take a class that offers you that opportunity. Any class, or training, allows you to improve yourself and make some new acquaintances, male or female, at the same time. You can even plan to take another class together, to keep the friendship going.
I love spending time with young people. And, taking a class at a local university or community college allows you to do that, again, while bettering yourself. I am a lifelong Spanish class taker: I have taken so many Spanish classes without seeming to learn a word of Spanish, but I keep trying and I have met some lovely young people in the process.
Become a Regular
OK, I’m sure that this will not sit well with some of you but just keep reading and I think you will stop judging me! When I left my big fancy home and moved to a one-room loft space downtown I had some bleak evenings. I could walk into my place at 5:00 and not talk to another soul until the next day. Once I walked Red, my cute dog, we were done for the night. Horrible. So, I walked myself down to one of the restaurants on my block and sat down at the bar. I introduced my self to the bartender, Tony, who was the Thursday night bartender. I told him I was new to the neighborhood and that was all I had to do. He introduced me to a couple of guys who were super connected around my area and they helped me know about the neighborhood organization that meets monthly. I ran into a couple who I had known in my previous life and they invited me to a party. Needless to say, I went to that restaurant every Thursday night and still do. I did the same thing at another place near me and had the same results. And, it can be a neighborhood coffee shop: it doesn’t have to be a bar. Just a place where you can walk in and introduce yourself and let people know that you are there and want to be social. Is it hard to walk into a bar and sit down by yourself? Absolutely. But without having done that, I would still be sitting in my apartment watching Wheel with Red.
Meetups
If you don’t know about meetups, here you go https://www.meetup.com. There is a meetup in every city around the world about any topic that you can imagine. They are held at restaurants and coffee shops and are groups of people who have similar interests. It is exactly what it sounds like, you meet up and discuss the topic of choice. So, there is a knitting meetup. There is a Spanish meetup that I want to attend but am too afraid since I have learned virtually no Spanish! There is a running meetup. There is a social media meetup. There is a French meetup. There is a wine enthusiast’s meetup. There is a parenting meetup. You name it, there is a meetup for it.
Please don’t think that I am being flip about loneliness. I did all of these things and I was still lonely after my marriage broke up. Years lonely. Still sometimes lonely. But, you must be proactive and you must do the work that it takes to get yourself back on your feet. Try just one of these tips and you will be amazed at how you will feel. And, if you have some tried and true methods of beating loneliness, please let me know in the comments. If you know someone who might benefit from these tips, please share with her.
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