50 After 50
Praise for 50 After 50
“Maria Olsen has opened her heart in this deeply personal story that travels from deep despair through an affirming journey to renewal and joy. A compelling story that offers advice and encouragement for anyone seeking purpose, passion, and happiness.” —Robin Gerber, author of Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way: Timeless Strategies from the First Lady of Courage and Katharine Graham: The Leadership Journey of an American Icon
“Olsen is provocatively honest in her new book, 50 After 50, as she openly talks about delicate topics from her past. I applaud her ability to re-create herself and seek her bliss. This book shows how we can all change our mind-set and transform ourselves if we choose. I highly recommend this book for anyone seeking their best life.” —Trish Earnest, addictions clinician and author of Blood on the Walls: A Woman’s Journey From Rebellion to Redemption
“I am so glad Olsen is mapping out her explorations and encouraging other women to go on their own adventures. I work with a lot of women who turn 50 and say What now? What’s next? Who am I? I love the idea of explorations, experiments, and deep dives during this beautiful stage in life. What a gift to have this conversation. Aging is really the privilege of a lifetime.” —Pleasance Silicki, health coach, teacher, and author of Delight: Eight Principles for Living with Joy and Ease
“Olsen has the courage and knows the importance of conquering fears, fulfilling dreams, and taking new steps at every stage of life. I’d follow her anywhere!” —Iris Krasnow, best-selling author of relationship books
“It feels like a miracle! Just as I am entering the final countdown to 50 myself, embarking on a career change, and as our youngest child has left for school, Olsen, who I have long admired, sent me her delectable manuscript. This book is now cherished reading and a guidebook to the next chapter of my life. As soon as I put it down I’ll be starting my own ‘50 after 50’ list and will get busy checking them off!” —Aviva Goldfarb, author and entrepreneur; founder of The Six O’Clock Scramble
50 After 50
Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life
Maria Leonard Olsen
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Rowman & Littlefield
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB
Copyright © 2018 by Rowman & Littlefield
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Olsen, Maria Leonard, author.
Title: 50 after 50 : reframing the next chapter of your life / Maria Leonard Olsen.
Other titles: Fifty after fifty
Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017052855 (print) | LCCN 2017054665 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538109656 (Electronic) | ISBN 9781538109649 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Middle age—Psychological aspects. | Change (Psychology) | Rejuvenation. | Aging—Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC BF724.6 (ebook) | LCC BF724.6 .O47 2018 (print) | DDC 155.67/19—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017052855
™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
To my sisters in sobriety,
especially Sandy, the woman who helped save me from myself
Contents
Contents
Preface
1 Recovering from Childhood
2 The Emptiness of Materialism and Trap of Perfectionism
3 A Living Problem
4 Dry Drunk Grad School
Part II: Introducing My List of 50
5Travel and Adventure
1. Volunteer Vacation
2. A Very Long Hike
3. Solo Safari
4. I’ll Take Manhattan
5. Traveling Shoes
6. Appreciating What’s in My Own Backyard
7. Food, Glorious Food
6 Learning and Teaching
8. Exercising My Brain
9. Back to School
10. Radiohead
11. Consciousness Raising for Adults
12. Consciousness Raising for Children
13. Empowering Women
14. Sculpting a New Life
15. Stitchery
16. Work It
17. Mixed Remixed
7 Social Activities
18. Dating for Dowagers
19. Beat that Drum
20. Sing Like No One’s Listening
21. Third Eye
22. Ordinary People
23. Nothing Like Old Friends
8 Physical Challenges and Well-Being
24. Silent Disco Party
25. Yogi
26. Who Rescued Whom?
27. Back in the Saddle
28. Floating
9 Spiritual Endeavors
29. Excavating My Inner Wild Woman
30. Getting Off the Hamster Wheel
31. Shamanic Wisdom
32. Good Vibrations
33. Healing Self, Healing Others
34. Random Acts of Kindness
35. Higher Power
36. Raising My Spirit
10 Thrill-Seeking Ventures
37. Wind Therapy (Or, What It’s Like to Pretend to Be a Hells Angel)
38. Learning How to Fire
39. Thirty Seconds of Fame
40. Skydiving
41. Inked
11 Lifestyle Changes
42. I Am Enough
43. Seaside Sanctuary
44. Life by the Water
45. Keep It Simple
46. Good Company
47. Model Behavior
48. With the Wind in My Hair
49. Attitude of Gratitude
50. Following My New Road Map
Part III: Lessons and Tools for Your Own 50 After 50 List
Suggested Reading
Bibliography
Appendix
Book Club Discussion Questions
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
Preface
Maria 2.0, or Out of the Mud Comes the Lotus
As I turned 50, I had the distinct feeling that I was on the downward slope of my life. Actuarially speaking, I was. So when I turned 50, my gift to myself was to go on a crusade to make the most of whatever time I had left. I set out to do 50 new things that were, perhaps, significant only to me. The list spanned physical challenges, adventure, travel, spiritual work, and lifestyle changes. Each taught me something about myself and how I wanted to live the next decade and more of my life.
We all have challenges in life and cards we are dealt that we would rather not face. Life does not go as planned. But each of us can adapt and reshape our circumstances moving forward.
I had a lot of darkness in my past. It was painful to come to terms with some of that. But I took the necessary steps for me to heal. I have heard that the lotus flower grows out of mud. It took me a long time to appreciate my mud. . . .
I had always been a bit of a dilettante. I was fairly good at many things, but expert at none. Part of that had to do with my desire to evade introspection. I spent much of my life running away from myself—running so fast so that I would not have time to look within. When my therapist asked me what made me happy, aside from my children, I had no answer. When I reflect on this now, I am astounded. I suppose I really did not know who I was in any meaningful way. For the most part, I just took on roles that were expected of me and subjugated my desires unless they coincided or meshed with the given role. Pursuing 50 new things was part of my quest to determine who I was at my core and what cultivated joy for me.
The definition of happiness is debatable. In my youth, it meant pleasure and excitement. Those things can contribute to happiness, but I was looking for something less fleeting. At 50, happiness for me means contentment, serenity, and peace—with some spice mixed in.
I set off on a spiritual retreat, to search for clues about the authentic me and the meaning of my life. I actually went to rehab first, which was spiritual—so spiritual that I went five times. What planted the seeds of my transformation was a retreat led by don Miguel Ruiz in Teotihuacan, Mexico.1 I now strive to live my life according to the tenets of his book, The Four Agreements.2 These “Four Agreements” and the Twelve Steps3 for recovering alcoholics provided the road map for the next chapter of my life.
So eager was I to share my new way of living that I joined forces with friend, Dr. Nicole Cutts, and led some writers’ spiritual/empowerment retreats. Our tribe of women writers and seekers continues to support each other and check in on our writing and other projects. Participants have called our Vision Quest Writing Retreats4 “healing and affirming,” and “full of love, authenticity, and breakthrough.”
I came to terms with being middle-aged. I didn’t actually like the way I looked in the mirror, so I looked in the mirror less. I had been a lifelong athlete of some sort, and had run three marathons. The fire for running had dimmed since nearing and turning 50, and my knees rebelled at the beatings they had taken. I took up walking, and run-walking. I took more time appreciating nature as I moved along. I did daily gratitude lists in my mind and on paper. I prayed, sometimes reciting rosaries in my mind.
After I made some headway on my spiritual path, I set out to try new adventures. One of the more radical things I chose in this new chapter of my life—and most horrifying to my children—was to get my motorcycle license and a motorcycle after training at a local Harley-Davidson dealership. My now ex-husband got himself a Maserati at about the same time (but that’s a different story). This is my story.
I have some trepidation over revealing so much of my own dirty laundry, but part of my quest is to be open, to have no secrets, and to live in the light. Secrets can keep us sick. It is also cathartic for me to get everything out and to channel my learning in positive ways. I can now acknowledge that all mistakes and experiences present opportunities for learning if we are honest, open, and willing.
I hope my journey inspires you and other women to drink fully from the cup of life, maybe even earlier than I did. Time is a precious and finite commodity. Don’t waste it.
After decades of simmering self-hatred, I can honestly say that I like Maria 2.0. May you find your next version now.
I
Why I Did This (And Why You Should, Too)
Days can be long, but years seem to be getting shorter and shorter as I age. The fact that I have lost more loved ones in recent years has made me more acutely aware of my mortality, and incited an urgency in me to not waste whatever time I have left on this planet. Just this week, a healthy college classmate of mine fell, struck his head, and died instantly. Almost a dozen of my friends have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and several died from the disease. I believe life gives us wake-up calls. I no longer choose to ignore them.
What brought me to this point of critical self-evaluation and recalibration? It took me a long time to accept myself as perfectly imperfect. I carried much baggage that negatively affected my life until I dealt with it properly. I reached a crisis stage that forced me to realign my priorities and take a hard look at where my life was heading. I wish I had not allowed such chaos into my life, but it brought me to where I am now. For that, I am grateful.
I began as a biracial child whose parents were forbidden by law to marry in the state of Maryland in the early 1960s. I tried desperately to fit into an overwhelmingly white tableau, compromising large parts of my identity. I excelled at school and made my way through a top-ten law school, achieved a certain amount of success at a large D.C. law firm, and was granted a political appointment in the Clinton administration’s Department of Justice. Maternal instincts outweighed professional aspirations, and I became the mother of two amazing children. Perfectionism was my goal as a stay-at-home mom, and I read every book on the subject, researching and practicing motherhood as exhaustively as I would have treated cases in my former legal practice. I strove to create the type of childhood for my children about which I had yearned and fantasized.
After years of this, I snapped. Alcoholism flared and I lost most of what I had built, including an almost 25-year marriage, a beautiful home in one of Washington’s most exclusive suburbs, and other trappings of wealth and privilege. My kids grew up and did not need me in the day-to-day way I had devoted myself to for nearly two decades. So I went back to the working world and started over, in many ways. Now, I’m a life adventurer, making the most of whatever time I have left.
Everyone has something in their life that is a challenge. Many of us, especially women who have been socialized to assume caretaker roles, are not adept at handling competing demands on our time. In a social media–frenzied society, it often appears that everyone else lives picture-perfect lives with ease. They do not. Life coaching has become a lucrative industry. Books on how to be happy have proliferated the nation’s bookshelves. We all could use some help.
I had some major skeletons to deal with before I could stop running from them and live according to my values. I thought pretending I was someone else and ignoring these issues would be enough. But it was not. Until I dealt with the problems straight on, I would continue to suffer in silence and hide myself behind an armored persona I had built.
After I faced the skeletons I had buried, my life improved tremendously. My quest to try 50 new things after my 50th birthday was a celebration and extension of this improvement. When we enter our fifth decade, many of us have more free time, resources, and life experience to take on empowerment activities such as those suggested in this book. We do not have to allow societal patterns to dictate any sort of decline toward retirement.
Take a look at what I had to deal with before I could start my quest. And try not to judge me. We all have dirt. It just takes different forms.
Ernest Hemingway is attributed with saying, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down to a typewriter and bleed.”1 I have bled all over these pages. I hid many of these secrets for so long and attempt now to walk through the fear with th
e hope of helping you do the same.
• 1 •
Recovering from Childhood
We all have baggage. For most of us, at least some of that baggage is residue from childhood. Here’s mine.
As much as we hate to admit it, childhood experiences affect us throughout our lives. Some of us, even unwittingly so, repeat the sins of our parents. Others rebel against them. I did a bit of both.
I used to think my childhood was extra dysfunctional. It is, but not so remarkable by the yardstick of other alcoholics and addicts. Every family has stuff. My ex-husband came from a proper South Carolinian family that pretended all was well and shoved problems under the table. My family had issues for all to see. I still am not sure which is healthier.
Perhaps we are all recovering from our childhoods. At least I don’t know anyone who emerged unscathed.
And everyone has desire to fit in, especially during adolescence. I wanted to, desperately. I was a product of a biracial couple, who was forbidden by law to marry in our home state of Maryland.1 My white father was an alcoholic who was arrested at our home, in front of the neighbors, for beating my mother. I did not know anyone else who had been arrested, especially a parent. I was humiliated and afraid.
My brother and I were also the only children of color in my all white suburban D.C. neighborhood, and two of the few children of a divorced couple in my parochial school. Since the Catholic Church at that time excommunicated divorcees, our father dropped off my brother and me at church every Sunday to attend mass alone, amid the large Irish Catholic families that surrounded us. There were girls from school who were forbidden to come to my house because my parents were divorced.
My paternal grandparents moved in with us after my mother left. I am unsure even today if my father kicked her out or she left because my father beat her. Somehow, my father had custody of my brother and me during weekdays. He probably was able to depict my mother as unstable; she once ran away with my brother and me for fear of losing us, and she had been seeking solace from her abusive husband in the arms of others. At least that’s what I was told. I think racism played a role in my white father gaining custody of us. My father threatened to have my Filipina mother deported after their divorce. She swiftly got a job at an embassy to thwart his plan.