I talked to a woman about why I titled my memoir Left of the Dial: how I covet living a life in balance with my thoughts and feelings on the left of the dial so that what I feel and think is in balance not noisy and distorted with feedback and tension.
As I near 50, I want to talk to other women who turned 50 to ask them how they felt as they achieved this milestone birthday. In my estimation: now is the time to let go of the clutter: the cluttered, negative thoughts as well as the physical clutter in our apartments.
As I near 50, this might seem unusual yet I regret nothing that happened in my life. Regret serves no purpose except to keep you stuck and unable to move forward.
The beat of our lives goes on at 50. I want this to be an upbeat time where I seek to do new things and achieve new goals. Each of us needs to focus on what’s possible instead of making excuses for why we can’t do something.
Fifty is the start of our new lives not the end of our lives.
Clearing out the clutter is in order. Opening our hearts and minds to our potential and to others’ potential is the way to go now.
Some things I’ve learned now that my forties are over:
You don’t need 20 tubes of lipstick. Six tubes of lipstick will do.
You don’t need to buy what the media is selling about erasing wrinkles. As numerous older women have proclaimed, “It’s either my face or my ass.” You might gain weight and have no lines on your face or you might gain only a couple of pounds and have wrinkles.
By the time a woman turns 50, it’s time to stop chasing perfection. It’s time to live the dream of what you’ve always wanted to do or to live the dream of a new passion you’ve discovered later in life.
At 50, I desire to live a life in balance. I’m able to accept that the past had an expiration date and that the future is an open book.
I’m not so foolish at 50 to think I can have everything or do everything in my life.
Instead, it’s time to embrace our imperfections, to honor and use our gifts and talents, to see the positive not focus on the negative.
If you turn 50 and you still don’t like yourself that’s not good when most likely you’ll have 20 more years on earth.
All woman have to love ourselves from wherever we are right now. If we don’t like an aspect of ourselves or our lives, we have the power to change things for the better.
I’ll end here by telling you to repeat after me:
You don’t need 20 lipsticks. You don’t need to hang on to guilt or regret. You don’t need to conform to how society tells us a woman should act and be and what a woman should do in her older years. Dare to wear purple.
Let’s celebrate ourselves at every day. Let’s break out the champagne.
Fifty is here. The world is our oyster now more than ever.
Left of the Dial 