Earlier this year, as the last chill of winter spread across the North Carolina landscape, my husband and I were in the back yard looking at our butterfly bush. During the cold months, the bush lies dormant, patiently waiting to greet the world in full splendor. When spring arrives and into the summer, it blooms beautifully, bursting with tiny purple and white flowers, much to the delight of the butterflies and hummingbirds that visit.
On that chilly late winter day, we noticed that the bush was looking ragged, in disarray, and in need of attention. The older branches had become dry, brittle and were prone to breakage, while the younger branches were thin and wiry, and more stubborn and difficult to break. It was time for a bit of pruning.
As we worked our way around the tree, snipping here and there with our garden shears as the cast away limbs fell to the ground, I had a small epiphany. The scene playing out before me felt oddly familiar. It was one that plagues so many of us throughout our lives, yet society is often oblivious to it. Out with the old and in with the new.
As midlife women, we’re often the discarded limbs from the tree of life. It’s assumed that we’re old and tired, that we’ve worn out our usefulness, that we have little to offer society, that our best days are behind us, that we don’t care, or that it’s time for us to give up and make room for the younger generation.
Wrong. On so many levels, wrong.
Have you looked around lately? Midlife women are doing amazing things. We’re trailblazers, leaders, and entrepreneurs. We nurture, inspire, and ignite. We’re empowering and we empower. We have clarity and we’re using this time in our lives as our springboard to greatness. We’re: fashionistas, solo travelers, coaches, fitness gurus, chefs, writers, empty nesters, and so much more.
And you know what? Whatever we’re doing, we’re smashing it! Our age does not define us.
Speaking of age, society is youth obsessed. But you already knew that didn’t you? Everywhere you look, youth is being celebrated and heralded as the ‘thing’ to be. Magazines, the media, marketers, society-at-large – everybody’s spreading the word of youth. Conversely, there are conversations buzzing around on the other end of the spectrum and it’s talk that doesn’t benefit, flatter, or honor us – midlife women.
Are you as tired of this as I am?
It’s time to rethink the societal imbalance that tilts away from women over 40. The discarded limbs from the tree of life — the discarded midlife women — that litter the ground are crumpled, trampled, and left to rot away into the earth from which it came. And no one gives it a second thought.
I don’t want to be those limbs. And I hope you don’t either.
Here’s our truth: Yes, we’re aging, but we’re doing it with our eyes wide open – sometimes in the absence of fear, other times like a raging bull, determined to smash through the stereotypes of what society thinks midlife women are supposed to be. We can’t allow our existence to be dictated by the assumptions of others. And why would we? We’re accomplished women with experience under our belt who hold the pens as we write our own stories. And we have a lot to offer this world.
Give up? We’re far from it. Out of the running? No chance. Too old? Hell no. It’s too easy for society to dismiss midlife women. It’s time to make it hard as hell for them to overlook us.
This is the dawn of the pro-aging age. It’s a time to celebrate the women who’ve graced this earth for four, five, six decades and more. We may not be the youngest branches on the tree of life, but we’re still capable of nurturing, supporting, and feeding that tree.
