These struggles are real (as women)

The fodder for my blog has come from Facebook, my social media fix this morning inspired me to write this. As women, we always feel the need to improve ourselves. I wasn’t much different than the forty to fifty-somethings age group, they were doing the same as us back then. Self-help books, listening to tapes, and attending seminars, omg I did it all. I followed diet trends and was always looking to lose those extra pounds and although I never really got into jogging, I did walk. I could walk the whole city of Saskatoon if I wanted and I did!

In transcendental meditation, my secret word was ‘sharing’ and sometimes I fell asleep during my ‘trances’ and yes I always felt much better after. Improving my mind and body and becoming a ‘better’ person, mother, wife, or whatever. I was also an entrepreneur and businesswoman, with four hair salons, and a successful catering company, some of my achievements. Whatever I set out to do… I did it! I worked best backed into a corner and having to figure out solutions.. life challenges were always on my doorstep. Consistently improving myself along the way. ‘The Secret” yep.. no secret to me.

Do all women have to go through this I wonder? I see it happening all over again or did it even stop, women are pushing themselves to achieve it all! Looking back for me is not beneficial, I am a go-forward kinda gal, what’s next? Give me a challenge, an idea, something I can sink my mind into and help find a solution. I would make a great consultant now because there is nothing I haven’t tried or experienced. The bankruptcy did not kill me, it only slowed me down and made me humble, yep that will do it.

Women’s struggles are real and not the same as a mans. Our struggles encompass everyone’s happiness besides our own, and that’s the reason why we can’t have it all. Simplified it’s this.. we cannot make everyone happy and that’s a fact, I didn’t make this up. What makes us think we can I wonder? We want it all and we also want it for our kids and those we love, like what’s with that? We give everyone else a break but never cut ourselves some slack.. crazy huh?

Why do we need so many self-help books, they’re mostly for women you know, when was the last time you saw a man reading a self-help book? Me neither, they don’t need them I guess. They have us to tell them how to live their lives, that was a joke btw, or was it?  My struggles in my old age are very different than those in their forties and fifties. The forty/fifty gals struggle to get up early to go jogging in the morning while I struggle to bend over and get my shoes on (long-handled shoe horns were made for us). My exercise now consists of my trips to the bathroom at night, some nights I get an excellent workout. I don’t follow the not drinking after 2:00 pm rule.

I guess we old gals have struggles too but just not the same ones as the f/f gals. They want to look younger.. hells bells, look in the mirror, you are younger. Not one of us older gals has looked back on our pictures and thought geez, I wish I had looked younger. We look back on those pictures and laugh, we thought we were fat, omg how many of us wish we could have that body back? Ya.. me too, boy what I wouldn’t do with it now.. and not jogging.. lol. Just think of the fun I could have, na it would probably kill me, but I would die happy, just saying.

The point I’m wanting to make is for all you gals out there, you forty/fifty-somethings, is to go easy on yourselves. First off you are not responsible for everyone’s happiness, only your own. Maybe you think you can have it all, but think about what you really want, ok? You are not needy in the self-help and physical appearance department. I’m sure you could advise those twenty/thirty-somethings, am I right? As women I think we already have an advantage in life, we are NOT men. That is another can of worms and we don’t want to go there…

Your struggles may be real, just be a good person and try to live the best you can. Enjoy each day and choose to be happy. My life is much shorter now and if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t waste my precious time on improving whatever I thought I needed. I would love more.. eat more (savoring whatever it was) and I would have gotten a divorce years sooner than I did.. a surprise ending here, I know…

copyright May 20th  2020

#lmbl “living my best life”

www.my-thirdlife.com