Guest Author: Maggie Rose Crane on Writing for Midlife Women
I’ve spent most of my life reading books, not writing them.
Amazing Grays: A Woman’s Guide to Making the Next 50 the BEST 50 is my first attempt at writing anything longer than a speech or workshop. It seems that this topic found me, rather than the other way around. Let me tell you how it happened…
Both menopause and the big 5-0 hit me at the same time. A few years later, an epiphany in a hair salon convinced me to try life without hair dye. That’s when the proverbial dirt hit the fan!
I watched in astonishment as my skin began to lose its elasticity, and was mildly horrified when my tummy morphed into a permanent flotation device. Frown lines etched in deeper as the gray hair slowly encroached on my formerly brunette persona. As my silver roots began to emerge, so did every fear and expectation I had about growing older in a youth obsessed society.
Questions bubbled to the surface – Who was I becoming? Was this the beginning of the end? Would I be lovable, desirable and respected as I aged? Was it too late to make a difference? What could I safely take to alleviate my hot flashes, low libido and mood swings? Was sex now part of my past? What do I do now?
As a leading edge baby boomer, I didn’t have access to the wealth of information available to women today. There weren’t a lot of role models, and 10 years ago, not much new was being said or written about the midlife transition.
But I needed answers! I pressed the “pause” button on my life and stopped traveling the country conducting leadership and life skills workshops for women. I turned to the few books available on the subject, did a lot of research on the Internet and spoke with some doctors.
About this time, I also felt a need to go within. I gave myself the gift of a 3-month silent spiritual retreat. (Ha - anyone who’s ever tried silence for more than a few hours knows it’s very noisy inside ones head!) In the process, I learned a lot about what really matters and what was keeping me from having the life I chose.
A key insight was that if I just stopped trying to control everything, became clear on my intentions and remained open to possibilities - life would come to me.
One day, while on retreat, I was sitting in a quiet meadow. It occurred to me that I might be able to be of service to baby boomer women as they traversed these rocky waters of midlife by sharing what I had learned. I could write a book! Immediately, all my inner voices started bad-mouthing me and told me I couldn’t do it, I wasn’t a “writer”, and who would want to hear what I had to say anyway!
Luckily, my whole retreat was about practicing mindfulness and NOT believing my inner chatter. Those voices didn’t stand a chance. So, I wrote the book! I discovered that I loved writing and found that in the process many more insights were revealed.
Having walked the walk, I see that there is no need to be frightened about growing older – in fact there is a great deal to be excited about. Sex is not over, there are safer alternatives to mitigating hot flashes, gray hair doesn’t make one invisible (and gray hair is not for everyone!) and we still have much to live for. By taking our focus off our packaging and redirecting it to our essence – we can age with more grace, gratitude and gusto than we ever thought possible!
And that’s why I chose to write about women and midlife – it’s what I know.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:21 am
I’m 62 and I love this time in my life! It’s a settling time in this journey called life, like Maggie says “being clear on intentions.” When I finally “got it” that I didn’t need to control the whole world and all the worlds around me, life got easy, fun, and filled with much sunshine. I look forward to my years of fulfillment and can honestly say “I’m glad I’m here.”
January 7th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Maggie, this sounds like a wonderful book! I know it will speak to all the women of our generation who are so frightened of getting older. Thank you!
January 7th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
[...] women, Amazing Grays: A Woman’s Guide to Making the Next 50 the Best 50, will be stopping off at The Book Stacks on Day 2 of her virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book [...]
January 9th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Oh, how full of wonders, blabla… I have heard/read it all more or less similar in content and language choice , well, it seems like a 1001 times.
What I miss are “voices” (books, too, yes, would make a difference) of women in this euphemistically named “middle-age”, so, to make it more clear-cut, I talk of women (like me) heading toward getting 60, having been post-menopausal for at times seemingly forever and a day… are single mothers, who really still are responsible and have to take care of children or even just one “late-comer”, say a 14 year-old daughter, father, forget about it, couldn`t care less, a woman, well educated with more qualifications than anyone would ask for, then just when entering into this heaven in hell state of post-menopausal years and experiencing all kinds of absolutely NOT enchanting experiences or providing her with any obscure “wisdom” and insights, like migraine-attacks, major depression, mood swings are a party in comparison, but still can be quite torturing in the long run, sweating, gaining weight etc. etc. -besides the stress of “living for the dollar” after having lost her job as a university lecturer… trying to make a living by working 24/7 doing more or less anything that she manages to get hold of, a few translations here, some private courses there, rhetoric coaching (when she is lucky)… but exhaustion by and by shows its horrifying face, then parents get sick and die, friends sort of are only a faint memory (weren`t there so many just a few years ago?, well, she cannot afford anymore to have a night out strolling carefree from restaurant to late night bars, isolation begins to really sting and then becomes a constant pain… and one day, just one more day… and she finds herself having to apply for social welfare in order to make her girl and herself survive, but then the creeping for money, which ALWAYS is not only scarce, but REALLY just is lacking , constantly, - despite her still going on to again and again forcing herself to make whatever effort to get hold of some job, so they at least might have a living just above the poverty-line…
Now, just imagine this woman (and many many others like her) actually did write, even publish, she , rarely, after having swallowed some tranquilizers to shut off this relentlessly threatening reality of her life, she still , occasionally feels the wish to go back to writing, but the next day always brings some more insults, biting off the rests of her dignity, and , plain and simple, she cannot concentrate, her head is filled with the same worries, it`s always (besides all kinds of other problems and worries that scatter peoples` lifes) circulating around where, how to get that bit of money to at least make it thru the next days, she goes on, at times she even really gets on fighting, “There must be some way out of this ditch”… some perspective, she browses the Internet, the online-agencies, she produces concepts, projects even… then (for others just one of these things that quite normally at times make life a bit more stressful…)like an accident, an illness that forces her to wind down, good!, yeah, probably, could be… but not for her, for her it`s just one more dramatic blow, because, the financial desaster her life has become, the threat not to be able to pay the rent, electricity, the urgently necessary orthodentic treatment her daughter needs etc.