Greetings!

I’m heading to London this weekend for Speak, Write & Promote: Become a Mover & Shaker on May 31st and June 1st to help speakers, authors, and business owners learn what they need to do to build a larger audience or customer base.  You can read all about the program here.

Have a great week  #x1F600; .

Love,

Cheryl

  p.s. – Need a little Divine Direction? Use the “Touch of Grace” button on our homepage here.
 
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Topic of the Week

How to make peace with the endings that come with age.

Spring has sprung and the land around our home is bursting with new life.  The lime green fields look lush and alive and the underbelly of our deck is filled with nests of baby birds squawking all day long for food.

New beginnings abound!

Yesterday afternoon I plopped into a chair on the deck to finish one of the many May Sarton journals I’ve collected over the years.  This one was written when she was seventy-four years old and it chronicles her life as she recovers from a stroke.

I love Sarton’s journals and I’ve devoured each one like a decadent, irresistible treat.  She is uninhibited in the way she captures the reality of a woman living alone, doing her best to make sense of her life.

This particular book, After the Stroke, was my last one and I had only a few pages left.  I relaxed in the sun, feasting on every word, and when I turned the final page and finished, I stared out over the land behind our home for a long time, feeling the poignancy of this ending.

Endings.

Life is full of them.

Often without new beginnings in sight.

I know I’ve written a lot about change and uncertainty and aging over the last year and that at times I probably sound like I’m circling a black hole.  But the truth is I’m doing my best to understand and express what it means to age consciously and fearlessly.

I like naming the truth.  And in a culture that worships youth, it’s too easy to avoid the tricky conversations about growing old.  

Like death, most people hate to talk about it.

Fortunately, aging seems to make it easier for me to engage in uncomfortable conversations.  Not to mention the fact that I actually like getting older.

For the most part.

I don’t know about you, but I have no interest whatsoever in being twenty-nine again.  Just the thought of it makes me shudder.  I was clueless back then.  

C-l-u-e-l-e-s-s.

I didn’t know who I was.  I had no idea what I wanted or how to get my needs met.  And I swayed this way and that trying to please the world.  

Now at fifty-four I know what makes me happy and I know how to live there.

Sure handsome young men now look like they could be my sons.  (And some of them look at me like I’m their mother)

Yes, I have to face the fact that there are some sagging places that are just going to remain a little saggy. 

And I can’t get away with using phrases like “You look fly,” or “Ya feel me?” without feeling like an idiot because it looks like I’m trying to be hip instead of actually being hip. 

Hell, I just discovered the new definition of “surfboard” since hearing so many people talk about it after Beyonce’s sexy Grammy performance of Drunk in Love.

(I know some of you are googling it right now #x1F600;)

I’m finding the process of aging to be scary, unsettling, and also quite exciting.  Instead of trying to maintain a certain age, a certain look, or a certain lifestyle, I’m welcoming completion and change.

Like the ending of a good book, there are ends to certain stages of life and I want to be brave enough to face them, name them, and write about them.

That way I can be ready for the next adventure.

And trust me, when you’re present to the truth of what’s happening in your life, the ride gets pretty wild.

These days I find myself having adventures that even my forty-year old self couldn’t handle #x1F600;.

Stay tuned…

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This week’s video will make you smile.  You can watch it here.  Thanks, Deirdre!