Some women just have a way about themselves. They don’t wait for life to hand them anything…they go after what they want. That ‘take no prisoners’ attitude serves them well in life. Obstacles may slow them down, but they certainly don’t stop them. It just so happens, I know of one such woman.

You wanna know what midlife looks like?

Like many midlife women, Linda has found a way to make midlife one of the best times of her life. This May, she turns 60 years old and at the rate she’s going, she won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

Linda is one half of the dynamic duo behind TLC Writing Retreats for Women (alongside Tammy Coia), a business the two women started when Linda was 58. Linda handles all of the behind-the-scenes goings-on of the business. Lately, however, she’s been learning to teach Journaling and has found that not only does she love it, she has a knack for it as well.

Together, Linda and Tammy bring together like-minded women in stirring settings.

“We guide them to find their own truth and tell it with their own unique voice. Our business is expanding. We’re also offering our services to the corporate world for team building, improving communication, raising morale, and in some cases, changing lives. Our business is incredibly inspiring and rewarding.”

Linda lives a full life and a big part of that is work. But don’t feel sorry for her. As she puts it, “I can no longer tell the difference between work and play.” For her, that’s a good thing. “I live to work. I get up eagerly each morning, pour myself an iced tea, sit at my desk and, until and after my walk, that’s where you’ll find me. I’m always thinking, dreaming, imagining, creating. I love a good subplot in life, whether it’s a project or a dream, designing a new house, writing a good story, a research idea…I could go on.” What it boils down to is this: Linda loves what she does.

Behind the desk is where you’ll find Linda throughout the day, but even there, it’s not all work. Some of her leisure activities also take place at her desk.

“At my desk, not only do I work, but I do a daily Fiendish Samurai Sudoku, I often do a Zentangle and, of course, I spend much of my time writing.”

Linda also engages in sanding and painting wood. She’s painted 72 wooden eggs for her grandkids, as well as painting wooden Christmas ornaments with the intentions of leaving them as family heirlooms. She also loves to go on walks with a friend where they can share in the marvel of a fresh morning.

“I find that I have more interests and hobbies than I have time. I hike in the desert for adventure and perspective.”

Speaking of adventure, for her 50^th birthday, when she lived in Bangkok, Linda traveled to Bhutan and scaled a mountain to get to Tiger’s Nest, the highest Wat (a Buddhist temple) in the world and an experience which Linda counts as “a trip of a lifetime.”

With three children (one biological son, a stepdaughter and a stepson), Linda counts her brood as a large one. All three offspring are married and between them there are five grandchildren ages 7 to 11. Being a parent and grandparent has its wonderful moments, but also its challenges. Her first granddaughter was born with no hands and her first grandson died one day after being born. Still, she soldiered on.

Being an empty nester wasn’t easy for Linda. At the time, she faced an empty house at 40, repatriating after 15 years of living in Southeast Asia, a husband who was changing careers, buying a house (which she immediately gutted) and moving to Los Gatos, California, a town where she knew no one. To add to her loneliness, her husband took a six-month consultancy position in Boise, Idaho—more than 650 miles away from their new home.

“I remember sitting there alone and wondering what had just happened. I stayed behind in a town where I knew no one and created a home for us. I was there with no husband, no kids, no maid and no friends. I’d left a thriving expat social life and sat on several community boards, then I found myself sitting alone, everyone else having gone on with their lives. I found the need to create my own life, a new life from scratch.”  

September 2013 was a turning point for Linda. While spending a month in Yountville, California (a town in the Napa Valley)—drinking, eating, riding her bike along back roads each morning and spending time alone to figure out the next chapter of her life—she thought to herself, I’m turning 60 and I know the next 15 years is a phase of life that I don’t want to piddle away. If I’m going to do something big, now is the time.

It was during that month that Linda realized she had succeeded at whatever she had put her mind to. The rest of her life was going to be no different.

“I needed a theme for the next phase of my life. I enjoyed writing so I decided that I would just say YES to writing. A couple of months later, I was in class with Tammy and she offered her first retreat in Loreto Bay in June 2014. I signed up immediately. At the end of that retreat she asked if I’d like to partner with her and run TLC and I again said ‘yes’. It’s been two years and, while we’re still struggling, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

That wasn’t her only dabble in reinvention.

 “I faced the need to fill my life and started taking classes: painting classes, writing classes, non-profit management classes. I learned to paint walls, furniture. Soon after, we moved to the California desert, bought a house and joined a country club. While searching for a home, I found out that Gilda’s Club was opening a cancer support center in the desert. I became Chairman of the Friends of Gilda’s with a membership of 600.”

She also took up golf with a vengeance, improving her handicap from 34 to 17, hitting two holes in one and scoring 81 on the course. Golfing provided Linda with a hobby to share with her husband.

The real question for Linda is not whether she reinvented herself, but how many times.

“At 50 my husband grabbed another opportunity for an adventure for us and we moved to Bangkok. It seemed effortless to us both to accept the challenge.”

This was Linda’s first of two times living in Bangkok. During this time, she took on a corporate fundraising project and raised more money than the organization had ever raised before or since. She also was on the board of the American Women’s Club and oversaw five major social fundraisers.

As a strong woman, Linda wants to see other women embrace their power and strength. She ends on these sage words.

We have had the privilege of observing what happens when women and children were quieted no more. We now have power that women for many years were striving for. I was taught to stand up for myself by a strong woman. Her best advice to me and her expectation of me was to ‘Lead, follow or get out of the way.’