Keep Going and Going and Going

Posted on July 23, 2025 by janieleeds

Ernest Hemingway once wrote: The hardest lesson I have had to learn as an adult is the relentless need to keep going, no matter how broken I feel inside.

And I want to say to him, “Yup, ain’t it the truth!” in some exaggerated southern drawl that came out of nowhere for me. Because that’s how I feel…that’s how I’ve felt…that’s what I have done throughout my lifetime. Just keep going even when you don’t want to do it. Why? Because somebody’s always counting on me and I feel like I have to role model how to continue to navigate life’s challenges for the kids. Rest if you must, but stay on the path and keep going. Don’t give up. Even when life stinks.

It’s like that commercial from a long time ago with the Energizer Bunny – it keeps going and going and going…do you remember that? There’s no time to be broken and furthermore, nobody gives a hoot. You’re mom. You have no other recourse but to keep going even when broken. Hobble along as best as you can and cry when the kids are asleep or when they’re spending time wtih the other family. You’ve got a job to do and that’s it. There’s no wiggle room. So stand up, shoulders back and be a good little soldier and march on…

The downside to this is that a lot of feelings get pushed under the surface so you can keep going. At stressful times they may pop up only to be ‘whack a mole’ smacked down because you can’t deal with them. But then they burrow under the surface and dig a den and await that moment when you least expect it and the world crumbles down around you. Fun, huh? Not really.

That’s where I am. That’s what I’m feeling. Whacked a mole-d out tired. There are a lot of feelings swirling that I’ve not dealt with over the years. Maybe it’s some type of planetary alignment. Or maybe it’s just time to dig it out, look it over and burn the whole thing down to start again. (Figuratively speaking of course).

Hmm…do I dare?

Posted in #womenofacertainage, finding happiness at 50, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

About Last Night

Posted on July 6, 2025 by janieleeds

When I wrote the title, I suddenly remembered the movie with Demi Moore and Rob Lowe from back in the mid 1980’s. Do you remember it? A romantic comedy that I haven’t thought of in ages, nor have I seen it. Perhaps I’ll have to see if I can stream it somewhere…does anybody know? I guess my GenX is showing – LOL!

Last night I went outside to look up at the stars and the moon. It was a really clear night which helped. However, my ears started ringing and my body was buzzing. I think there’s an energetic shift happening now. I looked it up on google and there’s something called the 7/7 portal that’s opening. I’d have to do more research to know about it, but in the meantime, I was wondering if anyone else had that buzzing feeling or ears ringing. It definitely wasn’t the leftover fireworks that I heard in the distance either…

Lately, I am remembering how I used to feel and how I was back in the heyday of my youth. Back before marriage, kids etc. Back when I was a young, happy 20-something who had opportunities galore and wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. That girl? She said YES to experiences, to switching jobs and to pushing herself forward for her own rewards. Not this woman who writes from her kitchen table wondering how the hell she got here and how she can recapture that youthful glow because she feels her buried there inside under heaps of disappointment. I think it’s time to excavate! Don’t you?

Is there anyone else feeling similarly? It’s beyond the midlife crisis mode. It’s almost an unfolding of the past, a letting go of what doesn’t feel right and moving on to what I want (which I don’t know yet either). What I do know? I think there’s radical change on the horizon for me. Yes, I know, yet again I’m talking about change. But this one seems even bigger than the prior ones and incrementally I think we change as we age.

So, here goes…embracing life’s changes…baby steps yet again! But this time it feels like the universe is pushing it…ok, I’m letting go and allowing!

Posted in #womenofacertainage, finding happiness at 50, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Family You Choose

Posted on June 27, 2025 by janieleeds

Among my divorced friend group, we’ve often talked about each person’s ex and his family. Shockingly there are only two of my friends who are still in contact with the ex and ex-family and are on decent terms. Personally I grieved the ousting out from their family for a long time as I felt like I was the daughter his parents never had. I wasn’t always close with my family, so his became mine. But when the divorce happened, it all went away and I was left with nothing. And by the way, it was he who wanted the divorce (in case you’re new here) and for the kids’ sakes, I tried to be nice throughout the process. But no worries. I’ve seen behind the curtain and I’d never want to be a part of that mess ever again. He did me a huge favor by leaving even though at the time I didn’t see it.

But…there’s something we call the FYC (Family You Choose) which are friends who feel like family. Being a part of someone’s FYC is a big deal because it’s a CHOICE, not an obligation. In my experience, the FYC is your ride or die pal who has your back no matter what. I’ve been blessed to cultivate a circle of friends who’ve become a mishmash of sister/mom/confidente and part of my FYC. While not all of them know each other personally, they know of each other and have connected via me.

We’re a really strong girl group (not all are divorced or widowed or single) and while I can only speak of my own FYC, I don’t know how I would have survived the last decade without them. We’ve all taken turns mothering each other as most of us lost our Moms awhile back. Because sometimes you need the nurturing of a loving Mom – that kindness, caring and home cooking of comfort food that comes along with how Moms should be. At other times, we’ve been bossy older sisters to each other – saying what needs to be said in no uncertain terms because honesty is our priority. We say it like we see it even if it’s uncomfortable. There’s a special friendship when you can tell someone what they need to hear even though it’s hard to hear and hard to say. Like when my FYC all told me what I had been so blind to after the divorce. I couldn’t see it because I was still clinging to the man I thought he was and not who he’d become. I had my rose-colored glasses firmly planted and they ripped them off and then hugged me as I cried over and over because I’d been too blind to see. I wanted our lives to remain happy, but there was no happiness. Just duplicity, lies and shadow puppets.

The FYC (Family You Choose) is an important part of my life and my kids’ lives. Do you have one too? If not, I HIGHLY recommend starting one today!

Posted in #womenofacertainage, divorce, finding happiness at 50, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Spirituality Is My Superpower

Posted on June 24, 2025 by janieleeds
Daily writing prompt
How important is spirituality in your life?
View all responses

I’m a spiritual girl. Always have been, but over the years I’ve become even more so – believing in God and the Universe and the planetary placements and how they affect us all. I’ve gotten more in touch with myself. My intuition. My inner knowing and relied on all of those when necessary.

I still go to church occasionally too because I love the warm feeling I get with the familiarity of the recitations, the feeling of community within the building structure and the lifting up of my heart and voice when we sing psalms and hymns that I’ve known since childhood.

I pull angel cards every morning and read my horoscope. I repeat affirmations and say a few prayers throughout the day. Sometimes, I meditate. It’s important to me to stay connected with God, but not necessarily in the way I was raised by going to church weekly etc. I believe in God. I believe in a higher power. I believe we are all connected, united in the Universe. I believe that planetary alignments and astrological events can shift our energies. I believe in the power of crystals and most definitively in the power of prayer.

I also believe that we choose this lifetime, these struggles etc. to strengthen us, to test ourselves and to grow in ways that an easy life wouldn’t offer. The opportunities abound to grow, to connect, to learn, and to explore within the struggles. That’s what I tell myself when the going gets tough…LOL…the tough get going!

Often I have asked myself WTF was I thinking to have put so much on my plate in this lifetime! Then I laugh because I know…I wanted to experience it all!! The good, the bad, the ugly and the amazingly miraculously beautiful feeling of connecting with others. Connecting from an open heart is easier when you have similar experiences and situations. Being able to learn from others and share from your own is a gift that not everyone wants, but I do. I am a lifelong learner and I enjoy it! And that’s the basis of my spirituality.

How about you?

Posted in daily prompt, inspiration, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Ritual That I Love…

Posted on June 23, 2025 by janieleeds
Daily writing prompt
How do you practice self-care?
View all responses

When the ex left, my self-care morphed into rituals that I loved in the morning, especially if the kids were spending time with him and his family. Just thinking about those ‘good ole days’ makes me smile even now. I’d get up early, pour myself my favorite coffee, grab a notebook and go outside to our luscious backyard.

It would be early, 6am-ish when all the world was quiet and not yet up. Such a magical time of day. Sometimes there would even be deer in the backyard and they would simply look at me and I’d smile. After a time they would see me and keep on their merry way, undisturbed by my presence while eating all the hosta plants down to the nubs.

And it didn’t bother me a bit.

I loved that time in my life for the peace and quiet in nature. I wrote copiously back then, hand wrote in my journal all that I was feeling so that I could get it out and not have it fester inside of me.

Now to practice self-care, I still arise early in the morning, but there’s no garden to enjoy. Instead there’s the quiet of the diningroom table and the stillness in typing on the computer. I’ve not stopped writing almost everyday and enjoying that quiet cuppa.

It sets the tone of my day when I can ease into it. To me, this is self-care. I carve out at least 30 minutes in the mornings just for me. I can tell on the days I’m harried and rushed that I am not myself and it shows. It shows that I didn’t get my quiet time to ease into the mornings. It affects my energy like nothing else.

I’ve adapted to not having a garden, but someday I hope to have a yard again to enjoy. time will tell.

What’s your morning ritual? What do you do for self-care?

Posted in finding happiness at 50, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Does This Resonate With You Too?

Posted on June 22, 2025 by janieleeds

I was scrolling and this popped into my feed and I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel like it’s part of this solstice journey of eyes wide open and changes being made because I feel like jumping into the flow and manifesting a better life for myself.

“If your life were a movie, what would the audience be screaming at the screen telling you to do right now?”

If that doesn’t jumpstart embracing life’s change for you, please let me know! Because it made me think and begin to plan some changes tout de suite (translation: right now in French)! Perhaps the French vocabulaire popped into my head because I’ve been watching too many episodes of Emily in Paris on Netflix and I’m always hollering at the screen to her!

Doesn’t it seem so much easier to see someone else’s mistakes and to give advice to them because you can clearly see what their next steps should be? Even how you would act/react in a similar situation?

And yet…we can become so blinded to our own mistakes, our own choices and ourselves over time that we become stymied with inertia and paralyzed with fear, depression and/or a myriad of other maladies. People pleasing at every turn so as not to make waves because we’ve learned the hard way what happens when we do. It doesn’t go well. People say mean things to us. They judge us even when they don’t know the whole story so we turn to feeling sorry for ourselves which comes full circle to obliderating the ability to make cohesive choices for ourselves. To know what we want or to even have any clue as to what would make us happy. Instead, we rely on a sea of clues from others who really have no right nor say in our lives.

I think that’s what happened to me.

My get up and go, my joie de vivre, my little Miss Independent got up and left the building. Left me alone without a backbone. My innate sense of what I like, what I want and what makes me happy was washed away.

But no more…I want to take the lead in my own life. I want to be the heroine, not the poor pitiful second rate victim. I want to be Authentically Janie…

Look out because here I come…can you hear the engines revving in the background????

Posted in #womenofacertainage, finding happiness at 50, inspiration, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

New Beginnings With the Solstice

Posted on June 21, 2025 by janieleeds

Yesterday, I went out of my comfort zone and I did it intentionally. With the solstice being such a powerful manifestor, I wanted to ‘push the envelope’ a little in my life. After all, I’m not getting any younger and while I hem and haw in regards to wanting/not wanting a new relationship, I have to try. At least that’s what my brother has said on repeat – so I allowed a friend to set me up. While I didn’t ‘see’ the new guy, we did talk on the phone. ‘Ken’ seemed nice and chatty which was good. I dislike dead air time on the phone. But at the end of the conversation when he asked me to get together and volunteered to come to my town (we live 1.5 hrs apart), he offered: if I wanted, we could just go hiking.

Hiking? Uh…what?

No, no, no buddy. I don’t know what kind of girl you think I am, but I don’t go out into the woods alone with a stranger to hike on the first date?! I want to go out to lunch and sit with you. Get to know you. Watch how you eat and hope you have manners! I don’t need a fancy lunch, but I sure as hell don’t want to hike and sweat through the woods in the summer heat on a first date!

I don’t think Ken and Janie are meant to meet. Because of our busy schedules, he’s going to call back in a week to put a date on the calendar so there’s time to chat with my friend who set us up. The way he told me about how he got my number was that when asked what type of girl he was looking for, he said ‘athletic’ and my friend excitedly said – my friend Janie!

Double gulp. The first descriptor you may use when you talk about me would never be athletic! I mean, I like to play tennis, but I was never a sportie in school. I don’t even go to a gym! So, either he’s lying or she was drunk when she said my name. LOL

But the point is that I did it – talked with him. I was so nervous. I’d forgotten who I used to be. For the last few years I’ve isolated myself. Stayed small. I’ll admit you should have seen how scared I was to talk to the guy when I used to be the girl who could talk with anyone!

What the hell happened to Janie? Life. Divorce. Depression?

But NO MORE! I have friends who remember who I was in our youth. It seems they’re coming out of the woodwork now to remind me, so I’m listening.

What’s that line?

Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death – Auntie Mame!

Life has so much to offer…and I’ve been squandering it. No more. Let’s see how we begin again from here! Want to join me?

Posted in #womenofacertainage, dating after 50, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Making It Up to Myself

Posted on June 13, 2025 by janieleeds

I lost sight of myself awhile back. I don’t know exactly when or where I lost the me I liked, but she’s been obliterated. Now there’s a new fresh start edging to the starting line, so here it goes.

I stopped at the store as I’ve had eye infections for a few weeks. I needed to replace my eye makeup since I stopped wearing any a few weeks ago. In fact, I stopped wearing my contacts as well (doctor’s orders) and just put them in for the first time this morning. It’s funny, but it feels odd not having my glasses sliding down my nose every few minutes – a bit freeing I’d say.

I went to the local CVS to get some eye makeup and when I got up to the counter, the lady asked if I had a card (account) which I didn’t know if I did. Turns out I did have one that was ages old so she helped me to get it reactivated which was nice. I like nice people.

I came home to throw out all the old make up on the counter and unpackage the new eyeliner, mascara etc. Might as well start fresh. I don’t wear foundation as I feel as if it’s a big, heavy mask, so I have a few noticeable age spots. I guess I need to go to a make up counter (do you still do that? and where?) to get someone to match my freckles, age spots and overall complexion in order to get some concealer and tinted moisturizer. Although if I spend some time outdoors, I may get lucky and just get a suntan to even it out. Of course, that’ll bring on the wrinkles, age spots etc. A never ending cycle of grief, isn’t it?

Do you wear foundation? Or tinted moisturizer? Or do you just tan? Or is that so out of date now that nobody tans? See? I’ve been out of the loop for a long time…

Posted in #womenofacertainage, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Leeding With My Heart

Posted on June 12, 2025 by janieleeds
Daily writing prompt
What are you passionate about?
View all responses

Ok before you think I can’t spell, my last name is Leeds…get it? Leeding (instead of Leading) with my heart….giggle giggle….a silly play on words…

I wear my heart on my sleeve. The ex-narcissist used to say he could read me like a book. I never realized that everything showed on my face. I had and still have no poker face…at all! It was easy for him (and his mama) to manipulate me.

So, what am I passionate about?

Leading with my heart…being heart-centered and becoming authentically me after all the strife, the hurt and the betrayals.

I don’t want to go back to being that girl who allowed herself to be stymied and squashed by la familia. Everything was for the family with the ex’s family and while I respected it and actually enjoyed it when it was healthy, it became kinda like the US now with the king thing going on. (and please don’t get political here because I’m not going to debate any of that mess). The ex’s mama made the rules and everyone got in line and nobody challenged her. What she demanded, she got or there was hell to pay.

So my passion lies in being heart-centered and being me. No longer spoken to by any of the family, I have the freedom to not have to fall in line. But I’m also a bit caged since she ruthlessly researches me so I’ve had to block her. I guess it’s like a cult – when you escape their mind-controlling clutches, they still want to know all about you. Probably because they fear you’ll tell the truth (and here I am….). I’m also careful because my kids are still young enough to believe her and to easily tell her what I’m doing these days. She’s a master of easing information out of you. Believe me. I was under her spell for a long time and I know firsthand…

Leading With My Heart – Being ME, Authentically ME – finding myself again after so many years of being on the run, being worried about hurting someone’s feelings and not taking good care of myself. I put myself on the back burner for years, but now?

I want, need, deserve to be front and center in my own life, so this is the journey as it unfolds…

I’m passionate about helping others along the way. Telling my story so that perhaps something resonates for you and you won’t be sucked into the mess and stay there stagnant for so long like I did. That’s my goal.

I can’t wait to read what you’re passionate about! Talk to me!

Posted in daily prompt, finding happiness at 50, heart, midlife wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments