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By Ernst Lamothe Jr.
Thelma Reese, 81 Co-author of “The New Senior Woman: Re-inventing the Years Beyond Mid-Life” talks about work, book Q. Why did you decide to write this book? A. My writing partner and friend are retired college professors. About five years ago, we were talking about how the world we live in is so different than the world of our mothers and grandmothers. Also, we as women are living so much longer than in the past and there are a lot of challenging things all around us. We live in a changing world and some people are doing well and some are not. Some are bored just filling in their time just to keep busy. We wanted to write a book connecting all these thoughts and the issues women think are important to them. Q. How did you go about your research for the book? A. We talked to over 200 women all across the country. We went to nursing homes, senior centers and other places. Then we started talking to our daughters and they told us that we should blog about our adventures. Our first question was what’s a blog? Then after they explained it then it all made sensed and we shared our stories online. We called it Elder Chicks [www.elderchicks.wordpress.com]. People from all over became interested and started to read it. Then when we passed our manuscript to a publisher, the first one was a 62-year-old woman. She read our proposal and the many things we were talking about were things she wondered for her life and her friends. Q. When you went cross country talking to women, what were some of the things they were telling you? A. They talked about how they have all this independence, but they were not sure how to manage it. They 50
55 PLUS - March / April 2015
talked about how it feels to downsize in home and material things. There is an emotional jolt when you have to downsize both good and bad. You feel like your life is rapidly changing but then that might be a good thing too. The women also talked about dealing with issues with their middle-ages children and how there are still many stories of dysfunction and rivalry among their kids. Q. Why do you think it is difficult for seniors to reinvent themselves? A. We have been given the gift of time in life, but that doesn’t mean we know what to do with it. We spend so much time being defined by the jobs we had. Then when you retire, you don’t know where your life should go. You know you still have much to give and contribute in this world, but you also feel very invisible in this world, too. Q. What surprised you about the women’s responses? A. Many seniors said they felt comfortable living in their senior bubble and only interacting with other seniors. Many didn’t find a need to interact with other generations, which I think is a shame. I understand how people can get comfortable in their own lane, but I love when people interact with each other. When older citizens interact with younger people, I think it is a rich learning experience on both ends. And why wouldn’t you want to keep learning. Another part that surprised us is that people were very interested in looking for role models who are seniors themselves when they are in their 50s. They want clues on how to deal with the many things seniors deal with in retirement and beyond. They don’t want to live
out their lives in the cliche of a rocking chair. We like to say we are rocking as seniors but not in a chair. Q. What advice do you have for seniors that you have learned yourself? A. I have learned that you have to remember to find your focus and find something that interests you. Something that does more than just fill your time. You need to find something that gives you passion. There are still a lot of challenges and changes in your life. I know there are people who have not logged onto a computer until they were in their 60s or 70s. While it was a pretty steep learning curve for them, it can also be a very fascinating one once you overcome something that you thought was going to be impossible. There are people who pick up painting later in life who make some incredible things. You can’t give up on life or think that you can’t do something just because you get older. Q. Why did you chose to write simply about women in this book? A. When we first talked about writing, women were the first on our list for several reasons. First, there are a lot more women in this world than men. They just live longer. Secondly, they are a bigger population in senior centers and senior communities where we went. Thirdly, women tend to be open to talking about themselves and talking about their lives, much more than men who are not always in touch with their feelings or want to be vulnerable. But we do plan on writing about men in our next book.