Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Reflections on 50+
It wasn’t as if I woke up one day and discovered that I was 50+, but it kind of felt that way. All of a sudden everyone looked like a kid…my hairdresser, my doctors, my financial planner and especially those human resource recruiters. The 19 year olds at the department store make-up counter didn’t have a clue about certain new challenges I was facing, nor did they want to. And, these new aches and pains throughout my body were starting to annoy me. Advertisements for regenerating my skin given by a flawless faced 20 year old that “regretted” not taking better care of hers was a tad irritating. And, I don’t know about you, but I took umbrage at being barraged with messages about how people in my new age group were just falling apart and each different advertiser had a way to keep at bay, cure, or enhance the general disintegration of my mind and body.
I believe that 50+ women are vital, interesting, experienced, and wise. They are starting new businesses, gleefully (through tears) packing their kids off to college or into their new apartments, buying red sports cars or Vespas and sprinting around town with their pets in tow, showing up at the gym, entertaining their friends with fabulous meals, volunteering in their communities, traveling, reinventing their gardens and themselves. Sure, I understand that we are also taking care of aging parents, wondering how it is that our kids are back living with us in their 30s, and shepherding our significant others through their own mid-life crises. We have a lot going on, but when didn’t we?
When I interviewed women about their mid-life experiences, one of the questions I always ask is “What was that aha moment, when you realized that you weren’t 20, 30 or even 40 and never were going to be again. For me it was a series of things. The first aha moment I remember was actually getting a traffic ticket when throughout the years I’d always driven away ticket-less. Then, I became aware that the cosmetic houses were unable to produce any kind of cream to negotiate dry skin. And then, of course, the first time someone uses the “Ma’am” word!
One of my favorite stories involves buying a bathing suit. Face it, at any age buying a bathing suit makes women squeamish, but on this particular day I found myself at Nordstrom looking for that black-one piece suit surrounded by other 50+ women doing the same. A darling, young woman came over and asked how she could help us. We all took one look at her and let her know with our eyes that she could never understand our angst enough to help us. The poor thing faded off into the racks across the department and we all felt the unexpressed guilt that she could have been any one of our daughters and we should have been nicer. But, you see, we really couldn’t have been nicer because we were all looking for bathing suits. Bathing suits! Wouldn’t it be nice if the department stores had women to help us that could relate?
That is why I will be launching the 50Fabulous.com website in the very near future. 50Fabulous.com will educate, inspire, and motivate 50+ women to renew their sense of self, go after and achieve their dreams NOW, and turbo charge their lives. And, through them inspire others and break down barriers for future generations of women.
I’ll let you know the date soon, but in the meantime let me know what you as 50+ women would like to see.
