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Are You Living in Alignment?

July 8, 2018

Three years ago I ran away from home: I moved out of the home that I shared with my husband before he returned from work at 6 p.m. I moved into a one-room industrial loft, the one in the photo here, that I absolutely loved. The apartment felt small and safe. It was the one little place where I could hide from the world while my marriage was crumbling.

Last Saturday I took a giant step in building a happy life for myself again: I moved again. I now own my own condo (well, of course, the bank owns my condo!). I have lots of space and a wonderful view, two stories and the biggest closet I have ever owned (I will post some pictures when the boxes are unpacked)! And, while it is filled to the brim with boxes right now, it represents a new beginning for me; a new, happy chapter filled with hope and success and family and friends. “All that, just from changing your address,” you might ask. Yes! Yes! Yes! When I moved to my loft, I felt that it was important for it to look like home for my adult children. I wanted them to know that no matter where I lived, it would be their home. It might have been just one room, but it was their home. And that’s what it was, their home.

Now, while this is still their home, it is my home, it is me. My new place is not a miniature replica of my married life: it is a home for a single woman over 60 who has a full, exciting life. It is a place where I can entertain, where my children can sleep in separate rooms when they visit (rather than all in one room) and it is a place where I can really start my life over. There is nothing about it that screams, “I am a sad, sad woman who is having to pick up the pieces of her failed marriage and trudge through life.” Instead, I feel like it says, “Paula has overcome a mountain of obstacles and look at her now!”

Join My New Program!

So, I am launching a test program for Starting Over at Sixty followers designed to build community among women who are 50+ and single and want to live the fullest lives possible. I mention it here because the focus of the group will be how to take steps forward in order to live a life on the outside the way you feel on the inside: vibrant, vital and relevant. I want you to live in alignment! I hope you will join other women who support each other through this chapter of life. Please register here. This test group is 100% free and launches August 1, 2018. I can’t wait to get started!

Jaime’s Life Changes Course

July 1, 2018

That arrest may have been the best thing that could have happened to Jaime. First, it got her out of an abusive, captive relationship, where she was already in a prison of sorts. Then, it lead her to Tapestry, a recovery program within the Ohio Reformatory for Women: it was a critical pivot point in her life. Jaime learned self-validation, rather than seeking validation from others. She learned that she had so much anger internally, anger aimed at herself, that had not been addressed over the years. The dissociative disorder that had been diagnosed when she was a young child was brought to the forefront. She was taught how to recognize the signs of those internal demons and how to stop the behavior before it takes over.

While in prison she also joined a program focused on human trafficking victims, where she learned how to trust someone prior to intimacy, a concept that would have been lost on the old Jaime. She took classes focused on domestic violence while there as well.

Jaime spent 3.5 years in prison before going to a halfway house. She then traveled to Columbus, Ohio to join the Harmony Project, and David Brown, the director. “I knew he wouldn’t let me down,” Jaime told me. “I knew I’d be OK with David Brown,” she said, and we both knew what she meant. The Harmony Project group took Jaime under their “wings.”

“Now, I work at The Old Spaghetti Warehouse full-time, and I go to Columbus State Community College full-time,” she told me with great pride. And she should be proud. Her youngest son is living with her, too. “It breaks my heart that I wasn’t there for them when they needed me,” she said of her relationship with her children. While her youngest lives with her, her daughter is more in and out of her life and her other son is in constant communication. And, that man who cared for Jaime’s son back when she was using and was not able to be the parent that she wished she could have been. “I have a lot of shame about that. I don’t talk about it a lot because I have to admit to myself the mess I made.” Well, she has spoken with him. He was someone who was so kind to her when she wasn’t being kind to herself.

“What do you want to do next,” I asked her. If she could do anything, and I believe she can after all of this, it would be to put in place a program in which a judge, or children’s services, could give a female offender one more chance, one more opportunity for change before she loses everything. “Prison ended up being my chance,” she said. But she went on to say that she feels that there could be a program that could be used at a judge’s discretion for a woman to have one more opportunity before losing her children and serving jail time. “It (prison) definitely worked for me. I just wish I had had the resources, the knowledge, sooner.”

Jaime has been back to the prison where she spent years of her life, talking to women about her story. Her mantra, “Just start.” She said she writes it on her hand sometimes when she gets nervous. “I tell them to take chances, be willing to learn and just start. Take the necessary steps and be willing to be reachable. Don’t let the fear take over, just start.”

Jaime was featured in a brief documentary about human trafficking here.

To learn more about Dissociative Identity Disorder click here.

Get Inspired by Jaime’s Story

June 24, 2018

I met Jaime in the Harmony Project, a citywide choir for which I volunteer. But, prior to that, I had met her at the women’s prison in my state. She was in a recovery program called Tapestry and through Harmony Project, I visit there, singing with the women in that program. Now, Jaime is on the outside and came to Columbus because she knew she had a support system through the Harmony Project. She sings in the choir. I didn’t really know her story but I knew that she always has a smile on her face and is outgoing and making good use of this second chance. I didn’t know her background but knowing she had been in a recovery program in prison let me know, at the very least, her life had been somehow shaped by substance abuse. When she sat down and started talking to me my jaw dropped to the ground.

Jaime began by telling me that at an early age, and by early I mean within months after her birth, her life became a series of sexual assaults by nearly every man with whom she came in contact. She developed Dissociative Identity Disorder, DID, to protect herself from the pain, both physical and emotional. “Dissociative Identity Disorder made everything bad that was happening to me feel like a dream. I had to escape that horrible reality to survive,” Jaime told me. She soon was placed in the foster care system, where she found more of the same abuse. She thought her luck had turned but her adoptive mother was extremely mean. Something was still missing in Jaime’s heart.

She married after leaving her adoptive home and had two children. She was afraid to touch her first child because she was terrified that she would abuse him: it was all she knew. What was still missing in Jaime’s life was a relationship with her biological family. She left her husband with her two children and returned to the family that she craved and the love of her biological mother. But, she had unrealistic expectations of that family. She said, “I was looking for Little House on the Prairie. I was always running from something and running toward something at the same time.”

For an extended period of time, Jaime was in a healthy relationship. She had had another child, a son, who was living with her. She told me that the man in her life said he could tell when she was “zoning out.” “He said he could look into my eyes and I was gone,” she told me. She began to use methamphetamine, which to her felt like reality, something so strange to think about now. The man in her life took care of her son as she was unable to do it herself. She was an addict. She became promiscuous and became involved with a bad guy.

Now she was being trafficked, she was an addict and was being held captive by her “boyfriend,” Then her life changed. She was arrested for drug trafficking. As the arrest was happening she said that she felt relief, the relief of finally getting away from that relationship.

To Be Continued…

Jaime’s story was featured in a short documentary you can view here.

For more information on DID, click here.

One Key to the Fountain of Youth: Continue Learning

May 13, 2018

I was not the best student when I was young. I think I just didn’t feel that I had time when there was so much other interesting stuff going on! Now, of course, I see things differently and I often wish that I had buckled down a little more in school. I did, however, like to work so that was kind of where I found myself, I was way more into a job than I had been as a student. Now that I am in my sixties I think I have found one key to the fountain of youth: learning. I love learning. Maybe it’s because I kind of missed it the first go ’round. I don’t know, but I am usually game for any class or tutorial. I just love it and I think that love of learning keeps me young.

Learning makes me feel like I am still an important part of this world. I’m not just a space holder, but really contributing to the world by continuing to better myself. It gives me confidence. After I have been studying or working on a project I always feel more tired, so I sleep better. I am happier. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I feel young.

Here are a few ideas:

Learn a New Skill

Recently I met a young woman who teaches a free, online, build your own website tutorial (Let me give her some credit: https://www.courses.wp-bff.com/ ). Since it was free I decided that I would try it, but expected to drop out after the first unit. Well, guess what, I did not drop out and I have built a website, kind of, but the point is that I don’t think I would have given it a thought when I was younger. I was busy with life: husband, kids, house. Now, I want to give it the time it needs because I think it will be of value to me and I think stretching my brain is important. I am proud of myself and I have enrolled in a couple of other web courses. I now have a little bit of confidence in that area.

Do you love music and want to learn to read music? Take lessons. Just open your mind and learn what you can. Take a cooking class. Take a gardening class. Listen to a lecture at your library.

Get Better at an Old Favorite

I like to knit. I’ve done it for quite some time but I usually knit very simple pieces because I don’t think of myself as an expert knitter. So, what is an expert knitter? Is there a club that I can’t join? Of course not. I can call myself an expert if I want to or I can learn to do more stitches and harder pieces and actually become one. And all that entails is finding a class and jumping in. I like to go to knitting shows and take a few classes. I learn so much and even if I never use it I think it makes a difference in my quality of life. Anything you like to do improves your life and becoming better at that thing improves it even more. Expanding on something you already know fills you with joy. What’s better than that?

Technology

You might not like this, but here it is: when I hear a person my age or older talk about technology then shrug their shoulders and hold up their hands, I feel sorry for them. I hear people all the time say they don’t understand it. Well, start to understand it. Learn a little about it. Because if you plan to live for a while it is not going to go away. It is going to progress with or without you and your life can be opened up to so many possibilities with just a little bit of tech knowledge. Seniors who are computer savvy study their portfolios, plan travel routes and skype with their grandchildren across the world. To not stay somewhat up to date with technology is to deny yourself the opportunity to learn. There is an app called Lynda that offers tutorials for all kinds of tech studies so you can learn at your own pace. You can take classes through your community outreach programs.

Go to School

In most states in the U.S. colleges offer classes to senior citizens for free. The admissions office can help you register. It is one of the most rewarding experiences to be in class with young people; to make friends with them. If you want that kind of interaction make sure not to take an online class. You are really out of your comfort zone when you take a class at a college or university. It stretches your mind and they learn that one can learn at any age.

Women Are The Great Re-Inventors

April 29, 2018

Women 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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