friendship
I have been faced with my own prejudice over the last few weeks, my own antiquated mindset, and here it is: I believed that my married friends were happier than I was, or that being married equals happiness. Ugh! I hate to admit it because I know that being married isn’t always better. But the thought is right there in my brain hiding behind the “carbs aren’t that bad,” and the “I still look forty” myths that I tell myself.
I have had the opportunity to get together with lots of friends over the last month (I think we all hunker down after the holidays until cabin fever sets in and we emerge out of hibernation). As we’ve chatted I have been made aware of my feelings that my married friends don’t have problems, that they don’t share the same issues as I do, and of course, that isn’t true. We are all women over 50 or 60 or 70 and we all have relationship issues, we all face health concern
Do You Romanticize Marriage?
But I definitely have a romanticized version of their lives in my head. I had a romanticized version of my own life in my head, while I was actually living an anything-but-romantic life when I was married. And, these are not women complaining about their marriages or who are unhappy in their marriages. They are simply women, who, I had forgotten, need support from
While this time of life is supposed to be full of joy as we move into a “new frontier,” it is also a rough transition, no matter what your marital status. I don’t know anyone, male or female, that isn’t dealing with challenges related to aging. And, my married sisters are no different. My married sisters may even need me, and you, more because they need someone to confide in, they need someone they can trust when opening up about what is happening in their lives.
So, while I am facing my own prejudices, do you think you view your married counterparts as happier? Do you see them as not needing friendship and support? It’s time for you and me to change those thoughts.
Read MoreI can’t count the number of times I have written a post about loneliness. I think it is one of the most important factors in the lives of single women over fifty, and it is the main culprit in diminishing the quality of our lives if we let it. Some loneliness we just have to accept as part of life and growing older, but if you pay attention to the signs of loneliness and what is causing it for you there is a way to manage it.
Webster’s Dictionary defines loneliness as being without company. That’s alone in my book, not loneliness. Or sad from being alone. Nope, that’s not it either. Then it goes on to extend the definition as producing sadness and bleakness. Now that is closer. But I think I have come up with an explanation for my own lonely times that is helping me learn to better cope.
You need to know this, I love being alone. I always have. It might stem from my being an only child, a child who probably had more privacy than my friends who had three or four or five children in the family. As soon as I graduated from college, I got my own apartment. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like people, I do. As a matter of fact, I am super social. I love to be around lots of people. At the same time, I love reading and knitting and watching television alone. I can entertain myself for hours and days and weeks. Having time alone is awesome.
I am happy to be alone until it hits me that my children and friends are having fun without me! I am talking about holidays or long weekends traveling: when I think everyone is out having fun and I am not I get lonely. I feel left out and I feel sad. So I believe loneliness is not just being alone, it is being alone and missing something. Missing out. Missing something that you used to have or do. I was talking with a woman yesterday who told me that since her partner died she is so lonely. I get that: she had one life that she enjoyed and now that is gone and she misses it. Loneliness is in the missing.
One of the loneliest feelings for me is when my adult children are with their dad, now that I am divorced. It is not that I think they are having more fun with him than they are with me (don’t worry, they are not). It is the feeling that my time with them is cut in half, that I don’t get the whole holiday or visit. Just my part of it. Hate it hate it hate it and that is probably the loneliest feeling in the world.
So what can I do to combat the lonely times in my life? What can you do? First, plan ahead. Thanksgiving comes around every year and this year will be no exception. Get ready for it. I have been planning my holiday, well probably since last year. You don’t have to go that far, but make sure you have a plan in place, whether that is a movie or a Turkey Trot or dinner with friends. Never ever think that you can just ride it out with a good book and a bottle (did I say bottle? I meant glass) of something. You will end up more depressed and feel more alone than you did before. I have three holiday weekends that make me come unglued: Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day and Labor Day. Two are freezing and dark and one signals the end of summer. I know myself and I know I need to plan for those. If I don’t I will be miserable. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just something that keeps me occupied and happy and busy.
So prepare yourself. Don’t let that monster eat you, you eat that loneliness monster!
Read MoreI have a friend, a male friend, who has said to me more than once, ” You are one of the women I would take into the trenches with me.” It is his way of saying when the going gets tough the tough get going. I am proud of that. I find it flattering. So, I thought to myself, “Who would you take to the trenches? And I have to tell you that I look around at the people in my inner circle and I have surrounded myself with people who I would take into the trenches if necessary.
Think about the men and women in your life, the folks in your inner circle: would you take most of them into the trenches with you? If the answer is yes, then you are a lucky girl. Good for you! But, if you are assessing your relationships and don’t feel like more than 50% of your go-tos would walk over coals for you, metaphorically speaking, then it is time to take a good, hard look at your relationships and re-evaluate them. Who stays and who goes?
That may sound a little cold, but hear me out. there have been times in my life when I decided that one friend or group of friends was not serving me well. I couldn’t lean back and feel certain that I wouldn’t hit the ground. When I have felt that way in my life, I have made a change. And, while that change has been difficult, it ultimately has been the right decision. I hate to say it, but it is true.
As single women over fifty, many of us have had significant heartbreaks, at least one, in our lives. Couple that with the fact that we do not have a partner with whom we can navigate the rocky roads of aging, and friendships carry extra importance. So, if any relationships are not supporting you in the way that you need for them to support you, then there is no shame in re-evaluating.
Fill your life with people who you would take to the trenches and you will feel more settled, more confident and more at ease in every phase of your life. I promise you that. You deserve people around you who will dive in with you and who will help you come out on the other side alive. When you have that kind of inner circle, it will free you up to be that same kind of friend to others. Try it.
Read MoreI know you have all heard the saying that holding on to anger is like trying to kill your husband by drinking poison yourself; well it is something like that. Last week I received a phone call from a woman who just began to spew anger, not at me, but on me. I was having a perfectly great day and in 20 minutes I was a puddle on the floor. I was a wreck. It was as if I had stepped into quicksand. My mind was transported back to the terrible years I spent living with heartache and anger before I left my marriage. I actually began to sweat, physically sweat, while she was talking to me. I understood her pain, but I didn’t want to be part of that world any longer, and just hearing about it made me so sad. I thought to myself, “how did this just happen? How did I go from happy and looking forward to the weekend, to a red-faced woman with tears and snot running down my face?” I know you can’t make yourself let go of past issues, that happens in its own time. But, you can give yourself some guidelines, or rules, to follow that will help you have more good days than bad. When you are armed with your own “blueprint” of who and what you want in your life you are released from so much of the bad.
My Blueprint
My rules, the ones that I try to live by, are pretty simple. I have learned that if I am dreading seeing someone, whatever the reason, it’s time to give that relationship another look. It may not be a friendship that is worth keeping. Of course, if it’s a relative, there is no getting out of it, good luck with that. But you can move friends who constantly bring you down to a lower “importance” tier on your imaginary chart. If you feel guilty about that, don’t. It puts you in a bad mood and why would you let someone do that to you? You are doing it to yourself!
A more serious matter is betrayal. If I feel that someone has betrayed me, and there are lots of levels of betrayal, I’m most likely out. Once that trust is broken I am probably never going to get it back. I’m just not. Whether it is a friend, spouse or co-worker, we are done. Remember, these are the rules that I follow, and they don’t have to be your rules. One thing about being older is that I know myself and what works for me. I thought I could bring my marriage back from the dead once, but looking back, there was no way. I was sleeping with the enemy, literally. I wasted fifteen years trying to figure out how to like my husband when the answer was right in front of me: I was never going to like him again. Sadly, betrayal won that battle.
That is my blueprint, but it doesn’t have to be yours. You may be a person who is able to work through betrayal and that is great for you. Or you don’t want to sever a relationship that isn’t working, whatever the reason. That’s OK.
Forgive and Move Forward
No matter what rules you live by in the friendship/relationship piece of your life, start to notice how you feel when you are with certain people. Are you excited? That’s perfect. Are you clenching your teeth? You might want to re-think that one. And, what about forgive and forget? Forgiveness is a wonderful quality and one we should all practice. But, forgetting is a mistake in my book. One thing we old girls have is experience, and to forget what we have experienced would be to erase our past. I say, forgive and move forward. You should take what you know and put it in your back pocket for the journey ahead.
Grow Younger
Are you still wondering where the grow younger part is? Well, people tell me all the time now how great I look, and I know they aren’t talking about my body! They are talking about my face: I knocked ten years off my face by leaving a bad situation. I can even see it in the mirror, so I know they aren’t blowing smoke up my bottom. Letting go of the muck that I was living in has actually made me look younger, something all the botox and fillers in the world couldn’t do. I promise if you let go of some of the things that are on a reel in your mind running over and over you will look, and feel, younger, too. Take a look at the photo of me above and the photos on the site that were taken more recently. Wow!
Read MoreI was walking into an office building several weeks ago and a woman walking toward me said, “That shade of red is beautiful on you.” I thanked her and immediately had a smile on my face. It made me happy. It put me in a good mood and I started thinking about how much a small gesture can make a difference. So, I decided to start my own “Compliment Campaign” to see if handing out compliments felt as good as receiving them.
It not only felt as good, it felt better than good. It felt great. And, it takes no time or talent. I just started giving people genuine compliments. I tried to make sure to do five a day. I usually drive through McDonald’s in the morning for a smoothy and so I told the lady who takes my order how much I like her new hair color. One. The woman who handed me my smoothy had a new scarf wrapped around her hair. Love it. Two. I picked up a friend for a volunteer project and told her how pretty she looked in a dress. I had never seen her in a dress and I told her she has great legs! Three down, two to go. And that was all before 8 a.m.
There are a few points to consider here. First, it isn’t hard to find something nice to say to almost anyone. You can find a positive and it doesn’t have to be about looks. “You are my favorite ice cream scooper,” has come out of my mouth more than once (surprise, surprise). “You always do such a great job for me,” works. “I want you to be my server every time I come in.” You don’t have to lie, just think of something someone else does well and tell them about it.
It is amazing how the smallest gesture can make such a difference. I know how great I felt when I was told I looked good in the red top. It just puffed me up a little. But the benefits of complimenting others far outweigh being on the receiving end.
First, I get good service from those people. Others love to help the customers who appreciate what they do and how they do it. Second, it feels good to make someone else feel special and it costs nothing. Most important though, is that you never know what someone is going through on the inside. Someone crossing your path might be having a rough day and a kind word could make a world of difference.
There is a woman who lives on my block downtown, and by living on my block I mean outside. She is rough looking, there is no other way to put it. She often doesn’t seem to be coherent. She wears slippers and her hair is wrapped up high on her head. She always carries plastic bags. Not only is this a woman who is often ignored, she is a woman who could make one decide to cross the street out of fear. I’m sure you get the picture. I was afraid of her, I am not going to lie. So, I just started saying hello to her and sometimes she would answer and sometimes she would not. No problem. Then one day I told her that I liked her bright blue pants. She smiled: that was new. She said she was going to get more pairs in other colors, but I doubt that. It doesn’t matter. Someone who does not get noticed got noticed and I think it made her happy for a minute.
So, my challenge to you is to pay five compliments every day for a while and take in all the joy that it can bring. Make it a habit. It has been a game changer for me. My “Compliment Campaign” has made a difference in my life and I hope it will do the same for you.
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