Marcia Barhydt writes a bi-weekly column for The Brampton News, www.thebramptonnews.com , about customer service, as well as being a freelance reporter covering people, topics and events of interest in Brampton. Marcia also writes and edits content of marketing materials for her own clients. Visit her at http://www.willowtree.ca/ . Marcia is a proud contributor to Mimi Magazine, Celebrating the Better Half of Our Lives, visit www.mimimag.com to subscribe for free!
from Mimimag.com Feb 1, 2008
REMOVING OUR LOCKS. OPENING OUR DOORS
When did we start closing and locking our doors?
I mean literally locking the front door to our homes. I remember very clearly that when my daughters were little, I spent the whole day with the heavy wooden door to my home wide open and the glass storm door unlocked. It helped me see my kids if they were in the front yard and it helped me see anything else that was happening on my street.
But when I became a single woman on my own with my daughters and my own house, I remember removing that screen door and replacing the front door with a new steel door. I always kept the front door locked, especially when my daughters or I were inside the house.
And as I consider this question, I’m aware that it wasn’t a result so much of 9/11, although that changed our feelings of safety forever; it was, I believe, a result of me beginning a life of being on my own, being the only one responsible for myself and for my kids, being responsible period.
My kids are grown up now and now, I’m looking at those years and the subsequent years up to the present in my life and seeing that I’ve had quite a trip from locking my own doors to now leaving my doors pretty wide open.
As I moved into the second half of my life, and moved well into it, to tell you the truth, I now see that I’ve been able to unlock all kinds of doors.
And I think a major contributor to my own personal security has been my increasing comfort level with myself from that magic age of 50 to this magic age of 64 where I sit right now, today, writing this article.
I’ve learned that opening my own doors, becoming receptive to the events, happenings, challenges and even the threats ‘out there’, has given me a vast spectrum of experiences to embrace or to reject, as I chose. But no matter what my choice, I’m now able to allow myself the experiences of these choices.
And I think that’s pretty cool. I think that allowing life to happen, instead of hiding from it, is one of the biggest plusses of being in the second half of my life.
I think that all of us women over 50 have an incredible ability to experience life, to embrace it or reject it, to take the best for ourselves from it, to pass on our wisdom to our family, friends, colleagues and even strangers, to allow our experiences to shade us and to influence our choices and to colour who we’re becoming because of these experiences.
I plan to write about my own experiences, as well as stories I hear about from you, in future issues for Mimi Magazine. Miscellaneous stuff, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, but the stuff our lives are made of right now, the stuff that makes us the wise women that we are now, the stuff that has brought us to celebrating this wonderful second half of our lives.
Join me on my ride? Celebrate Age!
© Marcia Barhydt, 2007
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