Looking back, it seems to me
that I was clueless
until I was about fifty years old.
Nora Ephron
A handful of women I know are celebrating their 50th birthday with some trepidation. Having had a couple of years’ head start, I am here to assure everyone that the water is perfectly fine! The perks of this golden age include the 20/20 vision of hindsight–The more years you rack up, the clearer things get!
The quote (above) on turning fifty is by Nora Ephron, a prolific journalist, author, and filmmaker whose books, newspaper columns and magazine feature articles were irreverent as they were funny. Widely known for her trilogy of romantic comedies starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail. I love this woman for her courage in frankly writing about the best and the worst of her life, including the screenplay for the witty movie about her husband’s infidelity in the middle of her pregnancy. I love her evolving collection of five adjectives that she chooses to describe herself with each passing decade. Admirably, “victim” was never among them even through the cancer that eventually claimed her life to the great grief and surprise of friends and colleagues whom she chose to keep in the dark until the end.
Her commencement address to the Welleslay graduates of 1996 is relevant to the rest of us today:
When I was your age, I would have described myself as ambitious, Wellesley graduate, daughter, Democrat, single. Ten years later, not one of those things turned up on my list. I was journalist, feminist, New Yorker, divorced, funny. Today, not one of those things turn up in my list: writer, director, mother, sister, happy. Whatever those five things are for you today, they won’t make the list in 10 years–not that you still won’t be some of those things, but they won’t be the five most important things about you. Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you break the rules and make a little trouble out there… The first (half) of your life is over. Welcome to the best years of your lives!
Click on “Leave a Comment” (top left) to share the five most important things about you in this brave new decade.
All photos on this page from Google Images
xoxox
xoxox
Give the women you love the most unique gift
of elegant and timeless portraits with a
Powerful Goddess Gift Certificate
for a most memorable photo shoot for up to three people!
© Sharon Birke
Managing Member, DoubleSmart LLC
201 697 1947
Sharon@PowerfulGoddess.com
Glamour Portraits of the Goddess in Every Woman
Powerful Goddess Portraits 