Kick-Ass Girls and the Shit that Makes Us!

My intention with this blog is not to dwell on gut wrenching, body numbing losses that turn out kick-ass girls.  Loss isn’t sexy. The voices of women over 50 are quiet because most have, or soon will, experience loss.  But… people don’t want to hear about loss.  It makes them feel uncomfortable.  Edgy.  Unsettled.  It’s a good reason to get busy.  To inebriate.  But, life is loss.  My intention in this blog is to acknowledge… yes!… validate… listen to… allow…. what takes us to the edge.  In my case… what took me to the edge of the Pacific.  To the wilderness.  To the edge of nature.  But...  of more importance…. what brings us back. How do kick-ass girls deal with the seemingly bottomless pit of grief that inevitably accompanies heart pounding, bone gripping, life changing losses. How do we process that which seems unfathomable in our 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. How do women over 50 go “Wild?”  How do women over 50 “Eat, Pray, Love?” 

So what got this woman… me…. just one tiny leap over 61…. to the edge of the Pacific….camping alone?   It was a curve ball that landed with a heart stopping thunk in the form of a sudden, unexpected, body numbing cancellation of my story with the man I’d loved forever.  Thirty-two years in, he changed his mind and decided… in the blink of an eye… to marry a woman 30 years younger who barely speaks English!  This is what took me to the edge of Vancouver Island on Barkley Sound. 

One day my man and I were “making love” (I put this in quotations because, looking back, I’m not sure that’s what it was!)…  in apparent trepidation of spending five weeks apart. Two days later we kissed fondly as I bid farewell. Three days after that, I anxiously paced the roof garden of a travellers hotel in Jaipur, India, in the dead of night while he told me he was in love… with youth!…  and wanted a trial separation. I‘m sure he said “trial” just to soften the blow.  Either that or he actually believed he could have both me and her!  I was done!  Finito!  The End!  Thirty-two years together and the house we were building… Gone!  In one short, cowardly, long distance phone call… care of Vodafone.

Truth be known, I can’t say that I didn’t have warnings.  I’m embarrassed to admit that an earily similar trial of betrayal, cowardice and estrangement happened 8 years earlier over the same woman.  At that point I really hadn’t experienced much loss… yet!!!!  That was all about to change.

More about my story in my next post. 

See you there…… On the edge! 

Send me yours!