Women Over Fifty

Life is good for me and I hope it’s the same for you.  I’m feeling good.  I have a loving husband and family.  I have work to do and food to eat.  My shelter could hold a few more, but I save that extra room for when the kids and granders come home.

By the time I was used to the invisibility of the 40’s, I turned 50.

I realized I had more freedom than I’d ever had in my entire life.  I was free to be myself instead of conforming to .. . well, instead of conforming to anyone else’s idea of what I should be.  I was free to be me.  (Remember the book “Free to Be Me“?)  The question then was, just who was I?

I was not the girl that began this journey.  I was no longer needed as the mother of the family, though I love to have the kids near.  My husband had gotten over his youthful inclination to control me (not that he ever really could).  But who was I?

The answer, of course, was “Who do you want to be?”  I had learned to like a bit of the invisibility of my 40’s.  No one seemed to be checking up on me.  So, this late in life, I myself asked who I wanted to be.  Younger women might think they understand, but they won’t until they’re fifty and counting.

I wanted to write.  By the time I was 50 I was writing at work, but I wanted to write for myself as well.  How would I do it?

My husband began to believe me when I said I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life cooking dinner and cleaning house.  He didn’t understand it, but he believed me.  Our mothers had both been satisfied with that life.  Neither of them seemed to wish for anything else.  We hired a cleaning service and he took over a little of the cooking.  (Even a little help is significant when it comes to making meals.)  Now days we eat only one planned meal.  The rest of the time we fix what we want to eat and enjoy it together or not.  It depends on the circumstances.

It’s interesting to know this is not when I began writing.  I think the writing bug had always been inside me.  When our last daughter began school, I began to write seriously and sell a little.  My family was amazed and delighted.

One day the youngest one complained that the coat she had to wear was the same coat her sisters had worn.  “I want a new coat,” she complained.  A new coat wasn’t in the budget when there was a serviceable coat available, but what she was saying spoke to my heart.  I have always loved pretty clothing.

“I’m writing a story now,” I told her.  “If it’s enough money, I’ll use it to buy you a new coat.”

She held this promise in her heart.  In the heat of August, with my in-laws visiting, I received a check for the story.  At that time I wasn’t above dancing around the room when I got a check.  As soon as my daughter discovered the reason, she said “I get my new coat.  I get my new coat.”  Her delight was contagious.

Don’t ever look for a kid’s coat in San Diego in August.  We only found one coat that fit her.  It was a fake fur in dark green.  It was a little big for her.  She loved it.

When school started, we were still enjoying summery weather, but my daughter wanted to wear her new coat.  I finally let her.  She must have roasted, but she was wearing it.

One day I got a call from her teacher at school.  “I guess you know your daughter is wearing a coat to school.  She won’t take it off.”  I admitted knowing that.  “I asked her about it and she said you wrote a story so she could have a new coat.”  Well, yes, she could see it that way.  “I talked to her about what constituted a lie and what was the truth.” she said.  “I asked her to tell the truth.”

“She did tell the truth.” I told the surprised teacher, then explained how the coat had come to be hers.

So, good writing came early in my life, to please a little girl.

Later I applied for a job doing technical writing.  The pieces I’d written and sold required a lot of work and resulted in very small checks.  I thought it might be fun to write for pay - a lot of pay it seemed to me.

The rest is history.  I worked as a technical writer/editor for 24 years.  I discovered the truth in the saying that if you like the work you do, it probably isn’t work.

Now I’m retired and writing a book.  Not just books, but I blog daily.  I like that too.

It’s what I really wanted to be when I grew up.

Marilynne 

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