THINK LIFE OVER 40 IS DOWN HILL? THINK AGAIN!

Just saw Mandy Crest’s great Our Time Is Now blog, and it only reinforces the other reinforcement I came across…and one can never have too many reinforcements, as we all know.
Yesterday I read an article by Thea Singer in the Feb. edition of MORE magazine, and Singer has left me singing!
This article, “Power Surge”, reports on several studies that have followed women over many years (one for 5 decades) assessing various traits, including confidence, and guess what? Women in their 20s and 30s felt weak, incompetent and very unsure of themselves (no surprise to me, having been there). But in their 40’s these same women experienced an increase in confidence, felt that they had come into their own (as Mandy says), and that they could follow their own convictions no matter what others thought. Their sense of competency in their work and personal lives actually soared.
But how does the media portray most of us over 40? Dried-up and drifting from senior moment to senior moment. And I have to admit the media’s views of mid-life and older have always been tugging at my coattails, even though I knew that when I hit my 40s I was beginning to feel pretty good about myself. And then when I hit my 50s I even felt sort of complete…like I had come to know exactly who I was. BUT – as the 60s approached that nagging feeling that the media was right and it was all a mirage and I was really about to sink into the pool of senility grew ever stronger. Until – I read this article and all the info these studies had come up with. It, and then the follow up when I read Mandy’s blog, helped me realize what I had actually known all along – I have gotton better and better and better with age, and plan on continuing on this course.
So thank you, Ms. Singer, and Ms. Crest as well. And it couldn’t have happened at a better time, as I turn 66 this week. A better birthday prezzie I could not have hoped for!
Judith 66-and-lovin’-it Drake, Blogger for Women Over 40 Rock / In the Trenches Productions