Reinventing Yourself

Over the 30 years I taught elementary school, I almost always had a cage with something in it. Mice, hamsters, Madagascan hissing cockroaches. I also had a beautiful tank of tropical fish. I believed children needed to learn how to care for something smaller and more vulnerable than themselves. Empathy. Responsibility…

Maybe you recognize this feeling. You’ve built a successful career. You’ve accomplished things you’re proud of, learned more than you ever imagined, and perhaps you’re still doing work you enjoy. You’re not necessarily unhappy. And you’re certainly not ready to be done. But somewhere in the back of your mind…

At a certain age, people stop asking what you’re working on and start telling you. “You must be loving retirement.” “Enjoying those grandbabies?” “Must be nice to finally slow down.” They mean well. But for many women over 60, those comments land a little sideways, because the chapter people assume we’re in isn’t the one we’re actually living…

There’s a kind of grief we don’t talk about very much because, frankly, it can sound a little ungrateful. Nothing terrible has happened. No one has died. There’s been no diagnosis, no catastrophe, no dramatic ending. Your life may look perfectly fine from the outside. It may even be a life you worked very hard to create…

I’ve met women who have relocated to other countries and didn’t even know the language. Women who have written books and started businesses. Women who have found love. One of the women in my community adopted two infants and a toddler…

My father was a big man in just about every sense of the word. He was a big, redheaded Irishman who weighed well over 200 pounds and had played professional football for the Pittsburgh Steelers back in the leather-helmet days. Then he had me. I topped out at about five-foo-nine…

I know, it’s not easy starting over later in life, especially if it wasn’t what you had planned, or you have had an unexpected setback. It may even feel like the end of the world. I get it. After my marriage of more than 30 years collapsed…

People sometimes talk about turning 60 as if it is the beginning of slowing down. I see it differently. For me, it has been a time to look at everything I have learned, everything I have survived, and everything I still want to do, and ask, “What can I build now?” I have built twice before, and both times I stepped into something unfamiliar…

We don’t stop growing when we get older; our growth simply becomes more intentional. Yet, society often pushes the narrative that our later years are for winding down, rather than reinventing. In reality, the experience and perspective…

Your life is a STORY of transition. You are always leaving one chapter behind while moving on to the next. Some chapters are audacious and breathtaking. Some chapters are full of unspeakable joy and happiness. Others… well… not so much. There are turbulent chapters that leave…