A Seasoned Woman

I've been reading and have particularly enjoyed Gail Sheehy's most recent work, Sex and the Seasoned Woman. I've read a few of her books and each time they've made such a difference in my outlook and perspective--this one no less.
Sheehy describes a seasoned woman right up front: "What makes a seasoned woman? Time
A seasoned woman is spicy. She has been marinated in life experiences. Like a complex wine, she can be alternately sweet, tart, sparkling, mellow. She is both maternal and playful. Assured, alluring, and resourceful. She is less likely to have an agenda than a young woman--no biological clock tick-tocking beside her lover's bed, no campaign to lead him to the altar, no rescue fantasies. The seasoned woman knows who she is. She could be any one of us, as long as she is committed to living fully and passionately in the second half of her life, despite failures and false starts. How old is a seasoned woman? As Vera told Auntie Mame, 'Somewhere between forty and death.'"

I am a seasoned woman. I've thought about the seasonings that might describe me--sugar, surely, and maybe cayenne, cinnamon, and lemon zest. A recent Halloween my department coworkers and I dressed up as "Spice Girls"--the familiar red capped jars of spices. Mine was sage--probably most appropriate.

Sheehy groups the women in her study as Passionates; Seekers; Married Women, Dammits; Status Quos; and Lowered Libidos. I fall into the Seekers category, though I'd much rather be in the Passionates. Three years of celibacy bumps me out, although I'm absolutely a passionate person, being committed to being in a committed love relationship kind of redirects that passion elsewhere.

She offers a self-assessing quiz, reviews the stages of this second passage for women, and gives lots of wonderful models and personal stories (her hallmark, I think, in each book) to read and find hope and encouragement and options.

In a month I'll be 54. Just the other day, dressed in a new outfit, I bebopped into work and meeting a much younger coworker in the restroom with whom I am pretty comfortable, I asked a question weighing on my mind. "Is this outfit too young for me?" I asked. "I'm 53, shortly I'll be 54. What do you think? too young?" She stopped, looked at me with a blank look, and said, "What? you're what? I would never have guessed you were 53! No, it's not. I was just thinking how cute it is."
What a great feeling that was and what a sweet response. and, as she isn't one to mince words, I get to claim it as truthful, too!

a seasoned woman. feels good. feels spicy and sweet all at once. like me.