I spent Tuesday with three amazing women. Started the day with a hike on Mount Diablo with Michele, doing a loop that we have done many times over the years. It was such a treat to be able to hike there with her again. I really miss not being able to hike with her regularly, but I am so grateful that we’ve had this time together while she’s been back in California. We also have a long hike with the rest of the trail goddess group on Saturday, I am so excited for that!
After the hike, I met up with Lucinda Jackson, someone who is referred to me when I put out my LinkedIn and Facebook requests to meet with women who had made big changes in their lives after the age of 50. I actually had already learned a lot about what her life is like during that time of transition because she wrote a book about it, Project Escape. It was fascinating to learn about her experiences serving in the Peace Corps with her husband in their mid 60s. It wasn’t exactly the retirement scenario they had envisioned, but from that experience she learned a lot and went on to create a wonderful life centered around her core values. A life that is very different from the one she led when she had a busy corporate career while raising three kids. We had a fantastic conversation, and she was so inspiring and supportive of my journey and ideas for the future. I left there on a high from spending time with her.
Next, I met up with Tina Segrove, who I knew through my kids elementary school. She too had chosen a different path later in her life, going from decades of working in facilities management for a large hospital and moving to using those same skills to benefit a small nonprofit focused on jazz music, something that is near and dear to her heart. She eventually left there and has done some consulting, but has made sure to have plenty of time to do the things that she loves and to support the local school district by serving on the foundation board. We had such a wonderful conversation. I especially love that she does not rush to fill up her free time, giving herself plenty of space in between projects. She is such an inspiration to me and was also extremely supportive of what I am doing. It is ‘awe’some to find so many women at this stage in life reinventing themselves and creating lives that are better than they ever expected.
Another woman who has literally supported me my entire life is my mom. I am so lucky to have such a loving, open, accepting mother. I can think of almost no times in my life that she has ever questioned or second guest. Any decisions that I made. She has been such a fantastic role model as I have parented my own kids. I’m glad that I am able to give back a little bit of what she has given me over my lifetime. Today I met her at the local lab to help her get checked in and make sure everything went smoothly. Last time she had some problems because of the check-in technology that they have at the lab. While I understand the need to make the lab as efficient as possible, I think they should consider that their clientele consists of lots of older people who may not be as comfortable with the faceless check-in consol. Luckily, everything worked out fine and soon we were headed back to mom’s church to pick up some items to be donated to the church’s salvage shop. I had walked over from home to meet mom at the lab, it was a beautiful morning with great views of Mount Tam.
Since it was a sunny day I was able to hang my clothes out to dry, something I missed when I was in Wyoming since I didn’t have a clothesline there. I spent a good part of the afternoon putting together a gliding outdoor bench that mom had ordered last week. Even though there were dozens of parts and it took a while to screw everything in, it came together pretty easily, and I am really happy with the final result.
I listened to an eclectic mix of music on Pandora while I was working. The song Who can it be now?came on and it immediately brought back a flood of memories from freshman year in high school when Amy Boll and I tried out for the basketball cheerleading squad. That song was our tryout routine song and we must’ve listened to it hundreds of times over the two weeks we practiced our moves. We made the squad so we must’ve done something right!