WHAT IS WOMEN OVER FIFTY NETWORK?
Women Over Fifty Network is a community of women over fifty years old, all at different stages in our lives, with diverse backgrounds, skin color, beliefs, standards, experiences, culture, and each with a unique personality. But we all have one thing in common…we’re all aging.
Aging. It’s weird isn’t it? When we’re young, we spend a lot of time wishing we were older. Then we get busy living our lives, and just when we get a sec to flop down on the couch to take a deep breath, BOOM we’re 60. What the hell is that?
THE BIRTH OF WOMEN OVER FIFTY NETWORK
MIND IF I SHARE A LITTLE STORY WITH YOU?
While I was quietly reflecting on my approaching 59th birthday, reality suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. I was almost sixty. 60 YEARS OLD! I thought of the long list I’d been adding to through the years of things I wanted to do and places I wanted to see “someday”.
I Googled the Current Average Life Expectancy for Women in the United States and felt myself sinking into a funk as I estimated how many of my remaining years I’d be active|healthy enough to be able to complete all the items on my list.
For the next few months I was obsessed with a sense of urgency that I needed to hurry up and blow through my bucket list while I still had the time.
During those weeks I found myself unusually nostalgic and wistful as my mind meandered through the years that were behind me.
I was frustrated with my body as each day seemed to bring new signs of aging…dark spots on my skin, drooping eyelids, grey hair, reading glasses, crepey skin, sagging boobs.
Normally a fairly easy going and friendly person (outwardly), I noticed myself becoming more quiet publicly, and my confidence faltering when observing how other people perceived me (or how I believed they perceived me).
When had grocery clerks started calling me “honey”? Why was I being dismissed as unqualified when looking for work? What was with the pause and then polite smiles in response to my input during brainstorming meetings with my younger colleauges?
I felt old. It was an unfamiliar feeling. I wasn’t comfortable with it. Well no kidding.
Sadly, society still perceives 60 as “elderly”, “senior”, “aged”. I had been acting age appropriate by their standards. I believed myself to be old, so I was treated as such. Once I grasped this concept, ya know what I decided? NOPE! Not gonna happen. I’m not ready yet.
And just like that, my mind went into high gear and my thoughts took a whole different direction…(I love it when that happens!)
WHAT IF..
The more I thought about how many of us are out there who are still full of passion and so not ready for a slow descent into old age… women like me who still have a bucket list a mile long and are full of curiosity, a desire for adventure and a hunger to learn and discover, the more fired up I became. I needed to find my people!
What if I sought out other women like me? What if we could create a community that dispelled society’s perception of us as just aging baby boomer women who are past our prime?
What if together, encouraging and cheering each other on, we became a united front of strong independent women who were respected, admired and treated equally in today’s world?
I don’t believe that a silly little thing like aging should slow us down and keep us from accomplishing what we’ve always wanted in our lives. We’re strong. We’re driven. We’re motivated. We’re intelligent. We’re women who survived the 60’s and 70’s for god’s sake!
“I believe that armed with the right skills and knowledge, fueled by confidence, and backed by the support of thousands of other women like ourselves, we can pretty much accomplish anything we set our minds to.” Am I right?
Take a minute to think back on your life
…all the experiences you’ve had, the struggles, the accomplishments, the hard lessons you’ve learned, the hundreds of skills you’ve acquired.
You did this all yourself because you had no one else to do it for you, and because you were, well….pretty much a badass. Guess what? You still are!
Don’t you agree you’ve earned the right to back off from a lifetime of taking care of everything and everybody for a minute to finally put yourself in the forefront and take care of yourself now?
With all of us supporting and encouraging each other, how can we not become even more amazing women in the future than we’ve been in our past. C’mon. LET’S DO THIS!
WHO AM I?
Hi. I’m Patti. I’m a baby boomer who’s still amazed I survived the ’70’s! I’m a hopeless DIYer and love any project that stretches my creative muscles. I’m interested in more things than I have hours in the day to pursue. I have an insatiable need to learn and am happiest when I’m Googling. (Geeky or WHAT?!)
I design websites. I write eBooks, and I create courses. I managed a Pen Pal Exchange for Women Over Fifty which, because of the need for organization and structure, it grounded me just enough to keep me from spinning completely out of control in this creative world that I’d prefer to live in indefinitely. I’m considering firing it back up again.
I crochet, sew, like gardening, dabble in charcoal drawing, love to read, would like to pick piano back up again, bike ride, love long walks on the beach, occasional golf, and sitting by a crackling fire in a wooded campground on the lake, sipping on a steaming cup of coffee laced with a generous dose of Bailey’s. I enjoy all my hobbies, interests, and irons I have in the fire, but my passion, the thing that fires me up every morning, and keeps me up half the night, is Women Over Fifty Network.
I feel so lucky to be living out my dream of building a community of like-minded women over fifty and helping them rediscover and start pursuing their passions and living the lives they want. Together we’re a force! If you can imagine it, you can do it. It’s never, EVER too late!