As women over forty we are no longer invisible or relegated to the background. Even in Hollywood where youth is a hot commodity, actresses over 40 still have their pick of starring roles. The days of Driving Miss Daisy, DA or grandmother roles are over.
Advertisers and publishing have jumped on the bandwagon too. Lauded fashion magazines include models, features and even cover girls who are north of forty. We even have a magazine dedicated to help women over 40 feel and stay relevant as we reinvent our lives.
I am all for reinvention but the pictures I see in the magazines are far different from the one I'm living and I am sure I am not alone.. While I congratulate and support all the women making entrepreneurial strides, still climbing the corporate ladder, running for office or traveling the world, it's just not my reality..
I know that a lot of women in my neck of the woods are in different stages of motherhood. Some like me, have adult children. Others are trying to navigate the hormonal mine field known as the teenage years. Still other mothers are trying to keep up with the ever changing tastes of the tween years, Jonas Brothers, Beiber and any shirtless male from Twilight.
Then there are the women like my sister, who at 41 is having her first child. The happiness I feel for my sister and brother-in-law is genuine but tempered with a bit of guilt. When their child enters the world my parents will finally have the joy of really being grandparents. That's not to say they didn't enjoy being grandparents with my sons but it will be different as this new baby is entering into a two parent household. Like many people, I had high hopes for the same thing when my sons were born but it didn't work out.
I got married at the too young age of 19. My ex-husband was 23. Looking back now, I realize that we were both kids. Why did we get married so young? Without getting into religious specifics it was the only way hormonal young people could date let alone have sex. By the time I was 21 I was the mother of twins and my ex-husband had one foot out the door. He was gone before they were 18 months old. Motherhood is a wonderful yet frightening proposition at any age but at 23 with no husband to help financially or emotionally support raising two sons, I was terrified. Fortunately, my parents and my sister stepped in to help raise my children and their support helped me transition into single motherhood and another major battle, uterine cancer.
Again this was something that wasn't supposed to happen because of my age. However, cancer like every other disease is equal opportunity. I spent the majority of my twenties going through treatment, biopsies and surgeries all while working, and getting my degree online through Empire State College. It was exhausting, but when it comes to a battle to save your life, you can expect nothing less.
Thankfully, I managed to come out on the side of victory just short of my 29th birthday. I was ready to embrace life and move forward..I made plans and started my wedding business, a long time passion of mine until I was sidelined with MS. Though cancer changed my life in a lot of ways, the effects of MS were long term. Up until then I had been able to work a traditional nine to five job as a paralegal but episodes began to make it hard to work. A spinal tap left me unable to walk for several months and once I was on my feet, I needed to use two crutches to get around. And don't let anyone fool you, MS is painful.
I have always been the type of person who needed to channel my pain into something productive and for a long time that meant baking. I still bake but I opened up to another passion of mine, writing. I penned my first novel in 2000 MS Doesn't Stand For Multiple Sclerosis. In 2002 I wrote, You're Getting Married? But it wasn't until I wrote Down That Aisle In Style A Wedding Guide for Full Figured Women, that I really began to hit my stride. I've never been a little woman. I was a big baby who turned into a full figured woman. It was something that used to bother me but after dealing with two major illnesses, I realized it just wasn't that deep
As a divorced mother in my thirties, I was busy with my sons. I was lucky enough to find a relationship with a man who could look past my condition and we were good for each other for a long time. Things changed as I watched my baby boys grow up and before I knew it, I was sending them off to college. The separation anxiety I felt when they got on the bus for kindergarten flooded back with a vengeance. I was going to be alone but then I thought that it was the beginning of a new chapter for me and my then boyfriend. I wanted to travel, see shows, go to the beach and do some of the things I missed out on in my twenties. He wasn't interested, so we split up
I went back to my trusty pen and began writing. In 2007 Genesis Press published Not His Type, my first romance novel. I received a Romantic Times Award. I followed it with Bliss Inc., The More Things Change, Waiting for Mr. Darcy, Mixed Reality and I Take This Woman. All my novels have the common thread of being still a chick lit. Fiction for women north of forty.
I realized that through my writing I am constructing the life I wanted to live.My characters are all successful women who are either looking for love or have found it but life keeps getting in the way. Writing also helps me get away from the harsh realities of my life north of forty plus. Though I've written nearly ten books, I still struggle to stretch my budget. Being an author sounds more glamorous than it is. Most authors cannot quit their day jobs to write full time, which is why you'll hear an undercurrent of disdain when some big publisher gives a lucrative contract to a 24 year old oompa loompa from the Jersey Shore, to write about her life while my twin 24 year old sons who went to college still live at home with me and are having a hard time finding employment. Who knew that alcoholism and a proclivity to fist pumping was all one needed to become an overnight sensation? Then there is the Real Housewives franchises, most of the women are over 40 and leading what seems to be fabulously wonderful lives. If I would have known that, I would have camped out in the lobby of 30 Rock until Andy Cohen showed up to pitch another reality show, the Real Lives of Women North of Forty Plus. What could be more dramatic than watching a woman with two autoimmune diseases, secondary progressive MS and Celiac try to figure out how I am going to pay for my health insurance and the light bill every month. Not only have I robbed Peter to pay Paul, I've knocked over all twelve apostles. Like a number of women out there working hard, David Copperfield has nothing in his bag of tricks that could rival that..
So since Andy hasn't returned my calls, I am going to document my life with all it's funny ups and downs. I am still writing novels and wedding books. I haven't given up hope on having a Khardashian size empire without the sex tape, even though sex over 40 is pretty hot :-) but that's why I keep it in the pages of my novels. Much to the relief of my boyfriend, sons and parents.