Matters That Matter ®

INVISIBLE …that is a word I hear middle-aged women often use to describe themselves in the midst of the lives they are living. How do YOU suppose so many feel exactly the same way? Upbringing; restriction placed on the possibilities for women? Mothers who expected little else than to serve a family and therefore communicated conditional value to their daughters? I am finding though that there seems to be a trend among 50somethings…less and less are settling for the quietness and isolation that often comes when one is cloaked in invisibility. More and more are donning their Super Hero caps and finding voices that speak volumes about who they are, what they value and how they intend to spend the rest of their lives.

I AM CURRENTLY WORKING ON AN AMAZING PROJECT BASED ON THE VOICES OF REAL WOMEN. I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU…I WANT YOU TO SEND ME THE WORDs THAT DESCRIBES YOU AT THIS TIME IN YOUR LIFE…I am not looking for super woman, or fearless, or perfect…I am looking for the authentic words that describes you. I will use them to create the voice of our generation.

Me? letting go and open to possibilities.

The aging of a parent is a remarkable chance to look at ourselves…deeply, honestly, authentically; take an inventory of who we are, and for god sakes who we want to be down the road.

Navigating this time in my mom’s life has had me promising my o kids that i will  be different; less stubborn, less critical, more open minded when I am considered ELDERLY.  And I have promised to listen when they tell me I am none of those things and in fact am exactly like my mother…wanting what I want, when I want it, regardless of who is effects.

I have developed a plan for the ELDERLY stage in my own life. I will invite all of my loved ones over for a nice dinner. We will chat and reminisce and talk of their futures. I will tell each one how much I love them and kiss them eternally as I say good-bye. As soon as they are out of sight, I hobble to my car that has been packed with just what I need and a few treasures I couldn’t leave behind. Then I drive until I find a place that suits me. I figure the middle of the country, maybe Kansas. Hey, it was good enough for Dorothy. Then I would open my dream pie shop: The Slice of Life. I would bake and chat and eat all of the pie I wanted. I would welcome what came and not fight the inevitable.

In other words I want to go out on my terms, hurting those I love as little as possible. I think this makes great sense. It doesn’t impact my children with their young families; doesn’t drain anyones resources, doesn’t ceaselessly fight the forces of nature; causes less difficult decisions to be made and in a way sets my children free.

Now comes the tricky part…my mother wants nearly the same thing. She wants to stay in her home; die in her home; drive until the police tell her she can’t and eat Udderly Chocolate Ice Cream 3 times a day for as long as she is able(she is a diabetic, but has thrown caution to the wind). The daughter in me has not tolerated letting go and not trying to save her, or insure she has a better quality of life. She looks at me time and time again and just says…’please, just let me be. This is what I want… to be in control of myself, for as long as I can and for however that turns out. Please! I am as safe here as any where, but here I am content.’

I resist, I plot, I plan, I get second opinions; I grocery shop for her bringing home healthy frozen yogurt (which she won’t eat) and  leaving the Udderly Chocolate in Safeway’s freezer. She is asking, but I am not listening. I am controlling. I am controlling cause I am not ready yet. I am not ready to be in the world with out her. SELFISH, fuck yes. But a lifetime of answering  to Krissy (she is the only person in the world who calls me that), and having her stand in the driveway waving until I am out of sight: bad Norwegian jokes and story after story of how much she has loved my father. Has she been a perfect mom? OMG No…but I know once she is gone, I will not be loved like that again, as imperfect as it has been.

So I am on the verge of baking a chocolate cream pie, my favorite…swinging by Safeway for the Udderly Chocolate that is her favorite and celebrating what we love together  and  throw caution/control  to the wind together.

I find myself in the midst of a contest i never wanted to enter, let alone win. I am the least competitive person I know. Sure I want to win the lottery, but I have never bought a ticket. If I were a finalist in Betty Crocker   “bake-off”, I would  give the gal with the cupcakes my secret recipe for unbeatable chocolate frosting. She needs to win, while I could care less. At any stop light I count to 3 before I put my foot on the gas…If I receive a compliment on an article of clothing I am wearing I have been known to take it off right then and there and give it to the complimentOR. I could careless about stuff, or winning or prizes.

My elderly mom is in the biggest contest of her life…and she is determined  to WIN. Win what exactly, I’m not quite sure. Independence, yes! The right to make her own decisions, yes! The hope of turning the clock back, definitely. I respect her desires, I do. I have told her that if my kids came to me and said they were moving me out of my home, I would change the locks and tell them to go away FOREVER..

During her latest visit to the hospital, it was her doctor’s conclusion that she shouldn’t drive, or live alone any longer. I think she agreed, appeared somewhat submissive even, so as to get the hell out of the hospital and back to her life as usual. Unfortunately, my brothers and I agreed with the doctors decisions.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN. Her independence is a facade, one I have been happy to oblige her for so many years now. I work my ass off to help her pretend that she is doing “this” all on her own. Thus far we, as a team, have managed. But now with memory loss, she forgets what she agreed to and why and becomes defiant and determined to win…Let’s take driving for example. She now has declared that NO ONE has the right to restrict her privilege to drive. She forgets that she forgets. She has called the DMV, who said; sure, go ahead  and drive until you’re 95 or you kill someone…which ever comes first.  So now she is prepared to hire an attorney, confront the doctor, get a lock smith out to replace the car keys that have gone missing…

I respect her stubbornness to a degree. I celebrate her independence to a degree. Now comes the tricky party…do I engage, prepare to fight, wrestle her to the ground in a sumo style choke hold, or do I give her my best chocolate frosting recipe and let her win? The consequences will be grave. A fire, a serious car accident, an over-does or under-dose of life saving medicine…or god forbid a wheel chair in a corner of a nursing home somewhere.

My inclination at this point is to bake the chocolate cupcakes for her  topped with the unbeatable  frosting and let her win the prize…

I was with her when the doctor said…No more driving. Then as if that weren’t enough shock to absorb in any given moment, he followed up his proclamation with…and now is the time for assisted living. There wasn’t much tenderness, certainly no words of empathy about the loss of her independence, or leaving the home that has stored a lifetime of treasures and memories and been her safe haven from a world that was often  too overwhelming.

We’ve known this was coming. But we have all agreed to wait and see…see if the next fall she suffers will render her less capable than the one before. See if after the trauma of the car accident has passed, her memory might return. But the other day, when I stopped for by for an unexpected visit and she looked me right in the eye and spoke about people I didn’t know, relatives that never existed, I knew we were reached a different place

So after multiple tests, including enduring hospital food for four days and the wrong medication, we are together in her home again.  She is filled with appreciation and denial. She is sure that things will improve and she will be driving and planting her summer tomatoes before we know it.

She has an amazing sense of humor. She always has. She has been able to make me laugh in times so dark I just wanted to disappear. She has always laughed at herself, her own idiosyncrasies and how she is absolutely NOTHING like her wing-nut brother and sister. We laughed last night…about memory loss and aging, about diapers and food spilled down the front of every clean shirt. She recalled detailed stories from the past that had us both remembering and revisiting. But then she couldn’t remember if she had taken her p.m. pills, or where she had put her jewelry or what the dr. said about her driving.

I explained again, knowing I would explain again, and again and again.

I find this moment, this transition for her and therefore all of us who love her, feels like a mental version of tai chi. She comes forward with doubt,  frustration and fear of what she must leave behind before knowing what lies ahead, and I don’t resist, or offer any objection or impatience…instead I lean with her, I surrender control  and let her move as she needs to so she can  naturally  find her own balance. By doing so I know we are working together to create an altered life… for both of us. Every day will be different than the one before, but the truth of loss will be consistent.  We are learning to let go and hold on for and to dear life at the same time.

She has been my safe haven and now I am hers. I hope I am up to the challenge.

You start the race…let’s call this one MARRIAGE. You’ve got the gear, the crowd is cheering in the stands; the official is there, with a gun pointed to the sky( or maybe to your head); you are already sweating and you are still at the start line. Will you place, finish at all, come in first, break your leg along the way when you stumble and fall on your face? Will the fans cheer for you or the one just a step faster? Do you have what it takes to cross the finish line? Are you a team of one or a team player?

Okay, so this analogy might be a bit lame…but I am sitting here this morning, tucked up warm and cozy  in my 30th anniversary and asking the questions: How did we get here? How did we survive the hurdles; how did we find the stuff we needed to keep going when we were exhausted and the thoughts of quitting were the best solution. So many of our team mates didn’t make  it. It wasn’t for lack of trying, they just got tired, ran out of steam, got a cramp that rendered them helpless…they had to quit to save their own lives.

I wanted to quit…many, many, many times. I was tired of the hurt, the fear, the sense of invisibility, too many commitments, too much stuff, debilitating silence, heart ache and anger. I wanted to be that wife you read about that left the letter on the mantle, drained the bank accounts and ran off with the pool boy.  Quit just fucking quit! I even had support…just quit, you have worked hard enough…some said.  Quit, move on, cut your loses!

I saw his crystal blue eyes in my daughter’s, the curve of  his smile in our grandson’s .  So many  ‘I’m sorrys” scribble across my bathroom mirror is soap, notes tucked in my pillow, conciliatory chocolate bars left on the counter, hopeful glances exchanged across a crowded room, moments of tenderness seeking forgiveness, connection, love and restoration. There were countless sessions with therapists who promised to help; differences explored, new coping skills learned along with communication strategies, timeout, apologies, understanding.

Every time WE wanted to quit, WE slowed our pace, one way or the other and found our breath. It hasn’t been easy, in fact it has been impossible… at times. But that is the premise of marriage…the one you never think you are agreeing to. “this will be impossible at times…you will not have what it takes to go on…you will think of quitting every way possible…you will be done and in your “doneness” you will hold still or fall backwards.” They don’t tell you that…you, so sick with love,  couldn’t ever imagine the possibility. But it is a Probability, an Inevitability.

30 years later WE are exhausted with our gray hair and wrinkles. Our bones tired and fragile,  our feet hurt. But this morning realizing that there isn’t one blond hair left on his head that lies just inches from mine…his  gray is soft like a baby bird, his breath warm and familiar laying under the blankets that cover us both. I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt,  that we are in the best shape of our lives. That we have won, got the trophy, a standing ovation even from the  crowd that has been watching. Did we come in first…I don’t know, neither of us do or care for that matter.  We just know that we have  crossed A  finish line and we are swaggering off the field together…knowing that if the next race is for those of us in wheel chairs, or walkers we are ready for the challenge. P.S. i have never loved more.                                               

THE FRIENDSHIP THAT WE SHARE IS MIRACULOUS ON SO MANY LEVELS…THE FOLLOWING POSTS ARE A RESULT OF THIS PAST SATURDAY SPENT APART AND YET TOGETHER…

The last couple of days have been filled with news both amazing and devastating; the work that I am most passionate about has taken a gigantic step forward, my dear  friend has been diagnosed with cancer, my precious dad showed up to love me in a way he hasn’t since my folks divorced 40 years ago, my daughter is nudging up against a job that will surely change her life, I’ve lost a little bit more of my mother, I got to hold a baby, my heart broke for the homeless family I saw in a parking lot, apparently living in their car.  

I was overwhelmed with feelings…good, bad, sad, ecstatic. I couldn’t make sense of what I was feeling and how I was supposed to be responding to all that had landed on my plate. I often take my confused self outside to mow the lawn. This is a never ending job and therefore always available as  “physical/mental” therapy. Once I finish cutting 5 acres of grass on a riding lawn mower the size of a kids big wheel, the damn stuff is ready to be mowed again. It was raining and the lawn was soaked. I didn’t care I needed the time to mindlessly make pretty patterns in the grass. I hadn’t  made one complete spin around the property  yet when I ended up in 6 inches of mud, tires spinning, creating major trenches by the second and me covered head to toe in dripping, slimy mud. I felt like a hot fudge Sunday without the ice cream. As I was trying to lift the mower out of the fox hole that I had created…I swear I heard an audible voice…loud enough to have me turn and look for who was speaking to me…Crazy? Never said I wasn’t!

“this is life…this is the fun part…the pain, the joy, the sadness, the ecstasy, all of it…this is life and each moment of it, an opportunity to grow.”

I hadn’t been thinking about a thing except how to get that f—— mower unstuck before my husband showed up with another bit of advice on my consistent yet destructive use of tools. I was captured by the voice, the thought, the suggestion that in the darkest of moment’s life is worth living because that is all we have. We have the darkness in hopes of finding our way out to the light. We have the light so we can navigate our way in the dark. It is a complete package, the whole enchilada, ying and yang, balanced to perfection…harder than hell sometimes? Yes! But lighter than air sometimes? Yes.

I did finally get the mower unstuck, the trenches filled with rain and I imagined a perfect place for a fish pond. Just wait till I tell my husband the good news.

AND THEN MOLLY SAID:

This morning, life happened. 

It started with a phone call about my brother who was taken to the hospital, and had just been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. Hanging up the phone, with a lump in my throat as I imagined the planet without him, the phone rang again.  This time it was a call from my youngest daughter, a recent college graduate, just to hear my voice.  I hung up the phone with a lump in my throat, as I gave thanks for her presence on the earth.  And so it continued.  A loved one on the brink of financial disaster, another with money in the bank and a brighter future. My best friend has lost yet another bit of her aging mom, and, her elderly dad showered her with love that he couldn’t seem to muster in her younger years.  It all brought a lump in my throat, every bit of it.

It was too much to make sense of on my own, so without thinking, I picked up the phone, as I always do, and called Kristine.  As usually happens, life had happened to her too.  Her heart had been filled to overflowing and broken, several times already and the day had barely begun. One step forward, three steps back, until she found herself up to her knees in mud, trying to dig herself and her lawn mower out of a foxhole, when “the voice” said… This is the good stuff.  This is where you grow.  I know that voice, and it always shows up when we expect it least and need it most. 

As we continued to talk on the phone, she said “Right now I am watching a beautiful, big fat woodpecker in my tree and trying to see God’s hand in all of this.” 

Well, I said, anytime we can see God in a pecker… it has to be good.

I woke up this morning feeling once again, defeated and disappointed… in myself.  For sleeping past that first light of day when the silence has so much to say. Lately I have been sleeping uneasily, often restless and wakeful. When that first call to get up and give myself those sacred moments of meditation, gratitude and grounding sounds, I choose to slip back to sleep and miss what I need to start the day. Without that life giving practice, so essential to my well being, courage and inspiration have paled, while fear and worry have come sharply into focus. Worry and fear do not fuel the kind of life that I would love, nor the work that is mine to do.     

It is time to wake up!   

This morning help arrived, through the internet of all places.  A woman, part of the Vibrant Nation community (www.vibrantnation.com) responded to the book club discussion Kristine and I are co-hosting.  (This month’s discussion is focused on Phyllis Thoroux’s wonderful memoir, The Journal Keeper. The theme is the need to UNPLUG in order to experience the here and now.)  The comment that caught my attention referred to her commitment to arise, however early necessary, in order to not miss her sacred time to herself, time to meditate, journal and read.  Her words were exactly what I needed to hear.  I am struck by the fact that when one of us speaks, we all have the opportunity to see the truth a bit more clearly.  Her words pushed me away from the computer and out onto my back porch where in front of a fire, looking out at the mountain I began again to meditate, to find a place of gratitude and to consider my next steps.   

Now, still in front of the fire, I have just read these words… 

“May I have the courage today

To live the life that I would love,

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more.”

      ~John O’Donohue (From his book, To Bless the Space Between Us) 

What life would you love?

What dreams can no longer be postponed?

What did you come here to do? 

Let us all wake up!  We each, everyone of us, bring to the world what no one else can. 
 
 

Last night was my yoga class.  It is always, always, always exceptional…. in no small part to my yoga teacher Yvonne (Namaste to you… you are changing the world, one dharma, one pose, one OM at a time). Sometimes it is so hard.  Sometimes I just seem to flow through the class with ease and grace.  Sometimes it is painful in a deep and sorrowful way.  No matter which of those it is, it always teaches me. 

 Last night was exceptional to the max.  Our dharma (lesson) was about taking in  (inhaling) what we would like to bring into our lives, and pushing out (exhaling) what no longer serves us.  Exhaling those old scars, stories, tapes, fears that have buried themselves deeply inside.  There was an intensity in the room.  Some of us were exhilarated.  Others exhausted. And, some of us were in pain.  Throughout the class I could hear quiet tears flowing and at times deep sobbing. During one pose, hearing that sorrow, I caught a glimpse of something extraordinary. There was my wonderful, wise teacher, with her arms wrapped around a sobbing young woman – not trying to fix it, not trying to make anything better.   My teacher just sat there and loved a hurting woman, as she continued to lead us through our asanas.  She didn’t back off.  She didn’t get distracted.  What she did, what she helped us all do, was create a space for pain, and hurt and grief and growth. All that that sweet young woman needed, all she was asking for, was a safe place to hurt. 

 Pain is a part of life.  I think every woman alive has more than her fair share of pain. We often give more than we should, listen longer, love deeper, shore up, hold back, put off what we long for, in service to others.  What we need, what we can provide for one another, is a safe place to hurt, to express, to grieve;  just a safe place to be until we can catch our breath, and find our way to solid footing.  Sometimes pain teaches us.  Sometimes it leads us further into who we are and who we can become.  And, sometimes we can’t see any greater or higher purpose.  We just hurt.

 Let us be a safe place for one another.  Let us be a safe place to hurt.

I was blessed this Mother’s Day to share the day with my two remarkable daughters and my sweet, fading mother. As I looked across the table of delights the girls had prepared in my honor, and my mom who wept through out the entire event(she lives each moment, literally, as if it were her last) I was filled to overflowing with the knowledge that women, all women deserved to be at that table. Women who are childless, have nurtured mine as if they were their own. Other mothers have stepped in when I couldn’t find the love or the energy to carry one; a couple of gay men adopted my daughter when she was far from home and made their home hers;  my sacred husband has taught me as much about love as any human being on earth…love is love; commitment is commitment; honor is honor…It takes a village, no truer word were ever spoken. My children are who they are because we are part of a remarkable village. For anyone who felt left out on a day that is to celebrate unconditional love…well that is just wrong. No one sums that up better than Anne Lamott, goddess of truth, light and imperfection.

Why I hate Mother’s Day

It celebrates the great lie about women: That those with children are more important than those without

By Anne Lamott

I did not raise my son, Sam, to celebrate Mother’s Day. I didn’t want him to feel some obligation to buy me pricey lunches or flowers, some annual display of gratitude that you have to grit your teeth and endure. Perhaps Mother’s Day will come to mean something to me as I grow even dottier in my dotage, and I will find myself bitter and distressed when Sam dutifully ignores the holiday. Then he will feel ambushed by my expectations, and he will retaliate by putting me away even sooner than he was planning to — which, come to think of it, would be even more reason to hate Mother’s Day.

But Mother’s Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women: that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path. Ha! Every woman’s path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is, sadly, true. An unhealthy mother’s love is withering.

The illusion is that mothers are automatically happier, more fulfilled and complete. But the craziest, grimmest people this Sunday will be the mothers themselves, stuck herding their own mothers and weeping children and husbands’ mothers into seats at restaurants. These mothers do not want a box of chocolate. These mothers are on a diet.

I hate the way the holiday makes all non-mothers, and the daughters of dead mothers, and the mothers of dead or severely damaged children, feel the deepest kind of grief and failure. The non-mothers must sit in their churches, temples, mosques, recovery rooms and pretend to feel good about the day while they are excluded from a holiday that benefits no one but Hallmark and See’s. There is no refuge — not at the horse races, movies, malls, museums. Even the turn-off-your-cellphone announcer is going to open by saying, “Happy Mother’s Day!” You could always hide in a nice seedy bar, I suppose. Or an ER.

It should go without saying that I also hate Valentine’s Day.

Mothering has been the richest experience of my life, but I am still opposed to Mother’s Day. It perpetuates the dangerous idea that all parents are somehow superior to non-parents. (Meanwhile, we know the worst, skeeviest, most evil people in the world are CEOs and politicians who are proud parents.)

Don’t get me wrong: There were times I could have literally died of love for my son, and I’ve felt stoned on his rich, desperate love for me. But I bristle at the whispered lie that you can know this level of love and self-sacrifice only if you are a parent. We talk about “loving one’s child” as if a child were a mystical unicorn. Ninety-eight percent of American parents secretly feel that if you have not had and raised a child, your capacity for love is somehow diminished. Ninety-eight percent of American parents secretly believe that non-parents cannot possibly know what it is to love unconditionally, to be selfless, to put yourself at risk for the gravest loss. But in my experience, it’s parents who are prone to exhibit terrible self-satisfaction and selfishness, who can raise children as adjuncts, like rooms added on in a remodel. Their children’s value and achievements in the world are reflected glory, necessary for these parents’ self-esteem, and sometimes, for the family’s survival. This is how children’s souls are destroyed.

But my main gripe about Mother’s Day is that it feels incomplete and imprecise. The main thing that ever helped mothers was other people mothering them; a chain of mothering that keeps the whole shebang afloat. I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, and my own best friends’ mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life, even after their passing.

No one is more sentimentalized in America than mothers on Mother’s Day, but no one is more often blamed for the culture’s bad people and behavior. You want to give me chocolate and flowers? That would be great. I love them both. I just don’t want them out of guilt, and I don’t want them if you’re not going to give them to all the people who helped mother our children. But if you are going to include everyone, then make mine something like M&M’s, and maybe flowers you picked yourself, even from my own garden, the cut stems wrapped in wet paper towels, then tin foil and a waxed-paper bag from my kitchen drawers. I don’t want something special. I want something beautifully plain. Like everything else, it can fill me only if it is ordinary and available to all.

While not every woman is a mother, we are all daughters.  Whether we had or have a good relationship with our moms… we all know how important that relationship is.  What we all long for from our moms is to be seen and loved for who we are.  We yearn to be loved purely and completely, without reservation.  We want to be loved for who we are, not who we are expected to be.  To be loved for our souls and not our successes.

So, women of the world, this mother’s day, let’s give that kind of love to ourselves and to every woman we know.  Whether you are a mother to another human being or not – the truth is, women love, nurture, support, honor, sacrifice for, tend to those we love.  We give birth… to ideas and dreams and hopes.  We create and bring new life into the world through our words, and songs, and art, and meals and jobs and professions.  In one way or another… we are all mothers.

This mother’s day, love and celebrate women for what we bring to the world.  Begin with yourself!

We honor and celebrate and thank you.

Blessings to you this Mother’s Day.

Molly & Kristine

“My most precious daughter,

If there is any lesson I would want to leave with you, it is to love yourself. Find peace with who you are and don’t look outside yourself for acceptance and love. Find it deep within you and treasure it always. When you love yourself like that, you will know the kind of love I will always have for you.”

When our publisher asked us to come up with a quote for the book jacket that we thought would speak for moms universally, this is the quote we found. It came to us in a letter from Lorea…a young mother diagnosed with AIDS. Lorea knew that the future of her 3 small children possibly didn’t include her. We chose her quote because we believe these are the words we all long to hear.

The mother daughter relationship is complicated at best. But there are those threads of insight, from all of our experiences – the good, the bad, the ugly – that help shape us into the vibrant, glorious women we are today.

So this Mother’s Day, give thanks for the wisdom you have gained in your life and that you can, in turn, impart to those around you.

Do you instantly recognize these words coming out of Jack Nicholson’s mouth? It’s that scene in Something’s Got To Give when he looks at Diane Keaton, the women he just “had sex” with and utters sweet NOTHINGS. She like the rest of us said…”What the hell does that mean?” I am sure he is filled with emotion…the emotion HE experienced and that is his way of gushing all over her with compliments, affirmations and words of love.

I can’t help but think of how men think and how women think when it comes to celebrating the person you live your life with. Mother’s Day for example…Any woman on earth would really like the same thing…check your favorites…

breakfast in bed (that you don’t prepare or clean up)

beautiful lingerie (that you didn’t pick out)

a project around the house completed to your specifications (that you don’t have to nag about)

a simple picnic (that you didn’t have to pack)

a movie of your choice (that you didn’t have to negotiate over)

hand made cards filled with love (that you didn’t have to help make)

Okay, so the theme here is that WE, on Mother’s Day, would like to be celebrated with love and simplicity and REST. Give me a day off and do the things that need doing, while I am enjoying the things you did for me. How does that sound?

ANY OF MY PEOPLE PAYING ATTENTION?

A revolution (from the Latin revolutio, “a turn around”) is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. Aristotle described two types of political revolution:

1. Complete change from one constitution to another
2. Modification of an existing constitution.^[1]

I think ‘Modification of an existing constitution’ accurately sums up the voices of so many women in my life these days.

We are in the middle of our lives.  And it is true, that what once fit us, no longer does.  We wear a different size of jeans(though we hate to admit it)…some even come with hidden elastic (those are my favorites), our jobs, our relationships, the thing we called “home”, our bodies are all changing. Sure we’ve tried to fight the inevitable, but the truth is, in order to be comfortable in our own skin we have to agree to surrender what was and embrace what is.

What Is? For sure what is, is that women are finding their voices. They are making changes in their own lives, the lives of others, the planet. Women around me are redefining what matters most to them; they are facing fears that for far too long presented impenetrable obstacles. Women are inspiring other women, opening doors, lending a hand.

Women in mid-life are powerful in every sense of the word. We are modifying the old and replacing it with what fits us now…what encourages us, inspires us, free us and motivates us.

My words of wisdom?…Reach out to another 50 something…ask for help, offer inspiration, look into her eyes and see yourself. We are part of a Revolution…and the word is slowly getting out.

art www.janicelaverne.blogspot.com