A Glorious Freedom: Older Women Leading Extraordinary Lives

by Lisa Congdon

They weren’t very good. I decided not to go in. It wouldn’t be worth it. “What waves would have been worth it?” Wendy said later, dismayed.

Then I had kids. That is just such a great way to get rid of your dignity. And it makes us all pretty democratic and makes us realize that, in spite of our failings, we have got it on the ball—so there’s that for a confidence booster and a channel for creativity.

“You know what? To hell with this. I’m not going to patriarchy school to learn how all you white boys do your stuff. I’m going to just do it.”

And I said, “I thought you would support me because I found something that I know will make me happy.” And he said, “Well, you didn’t ask me.”

Even in the dark, this young man showed the swagger of all the wranglers here, men who wear their jeans exactly the way Levi must have dreamed they should be worn.

In the stories we tell ourselves about women’s lives, there exists little evidence of what life after 40 for unmarried women without children is actually like; you’d be forgiven for assuming the “now what?” that comes after no marriage, and no children, is a wasteland devoid of love and opportunity to be endured alone till death.

Here’s the thing that has been the most shocking and that no one prepares you for: the freedom. Women today are not taught how to deal with this kind of freedom, any more than women of our mothers’ generation were taught to deal with their own money. We enable others’ freedom—as home keepers, child-minders—but are rarely rewarded for having our own. Meanwhile, men, or white men, have been taught nothing but. It’s the goddamn ethos of this country: Go West, be free, grow up with the country.

Fortunately, I’m old enough to know that people in marriages, and with children, feel all of these things (and how much worse is it to feel lonely in a relationship, which is something so few people talk about and so many experience) at one time or another. No matter how often we imagine marriage as the solution to women’s problems, it is simply another way of living.

“Really, the more I cook the more I like to cook. To think it has taken me 40 yrs. to find my true passion (cat and husb. excepted).”

Ilona: Everybody is struggling for something. Some, all they want to do is find a lover. Others want to be very famous. Others want to have a well-paying job. And they might give up when they don’t succeed right away. But it takes quite a long time to nourish whatever you want to do with your life.

And so my advice—and this is what I did—is to look at why you feel you can’t rely on yourself. Why do you feel that you won’t be able to do something you really want to do? What is the mindset that is creating that foundation of belief? And if you can work on that foundation of belief and why you feel that way, then from there you will find profound momentum. We often edit what’s possible for our lives before we even imagine what’s possible. We start to censor before we even dream.

And I think there’s always someone who comes in the pool who just wants to race me, and I just put my fins on and go kind of easy. I am enjoying the calmness and the quietness of the water and not feeling like I always have to compete. I mean, every once in a while I have some guy next to me and I’m like, All right, you want to race? I’ll race you.

Betty: I have lived my complete life in a total state of surprise. I am not a planner and I’m still having first experiences. I’m still wondering what I’m going to be when I grow up.