Winding down on National Women's History Month with the story of Cee Cee from Ladies In Waiting.
Most people crash wedding receptions or birthday parties. Me? I crashed a retreat for women over the age of fifty. I'm only thirty-two. But I'm so tired and so uninspired with my life. Don't get me wrong. I love my kids more than anything and I think I still love Ben. So much is going on in my life right now and I need him to be supportive. But we just seem to get farther and farther apart. I feel lost. So when my mother was unable to attend the retreat with other women her age, I arranged for my mother-in-law to babysit, packed a bag--which turned out to be filled with all sorts of surprises thanks to my kids--and drove my soccer mom van to a retreat house whose name I couldn't even pronounce.
The other women--Julia, Liv, Markie and Andi--were all there to reinvent themselves. I felt like I was there to invent myself in the first place. I thought about all the things no one told me--that married love changes, that we start to take each other for granted, that sometimes we make sacrifices we regret. That being a grownup is so darned hard.
That these women let me stay with them for the week was miracle enough for me. That they were gracious enough to share their stories with me--the kid of the group--was just amazing. That week was like a crash course in aging well despite making mistakes. They each came to the retreat running from something, the same way I was running. But these women were warriors. They ARE warriors, and I want to finish growing up just like them. I'm glad I started when I did. I'm also glad I found a way to follow my dream and still hold onto the dreams I'd begun to build with Ben and our kids. I know you can't have it all, but I sure do have more than I'd ever imagined.
Get to know Cee Cee better in LADIES IN WAITING, (from Turquoise Morning Press) available in ebook and trade paperback at Amazon.com
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