April 16, 2012

Second Act




I've been busy this week settling my 90 year old mom into her new life at a retirement community just 3 miles from my house. It is a huge change for her to cast away not only her home of 41 years, but also all her friends. Leaving her in her new apartment the first night I kind of felt like I did when I dropped my kids at kindergarten and college for the first time. Are they going to be okay? Will they be lonely? Will they connect with someone that they like? Pleeeease?

I have a lump in my throat as I write this- as my mom is very much still in the process of making her way in her new life here and will for several months to come no doubt. Like going off to college, everything is so new around her. Plus, she is still recuperating from getting knocked over just a month ago and gumptioning up the immense energy that it takes to move and reorganize one's life. The good news is that we are having fun together styling her new digs with all her treasures. I can see that it is very freeing to take only our very favorite possessions with us and leave all the other riff-raft in life behind.

It makes me want to do it.

Anyway, many thanks to Aldra at Consciously Frugal for alerting me to this great Yahoo award winning video series called Second Act, which highlights women and men over the age of 50 who have reinvented themselves. The videos are all so good I didn't know which one to pick, but I ended up choosing this one because what Cindy Joseph has to say so closely supports my intention here on Lines of Beauty.

Another great clip is of 85 year old Louise Hay, spiritual writer, lecturer, and publisher of Hay House (and a high school dropout). She is an amazing women.

She says that how we start our day, is how we are going to live our day, and how we live our day, is the way we live our life.

A cancer survivor, she also shares that "Sometimes the things we think of as the biggest tragedies, turn out to be the best things that could possibly happen."

Have a good week everyone.

XOXO,
Louise