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Stephanie Raffelock

A Delightful Little Book On Aging

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  • forgetenothas quoted3 years ago
    In my heart lives a sassy, sensitive, and barefooted little girl who understands that life is all about surrendering to the experience while you learn to dance with it.
  • forgetenothas quoted3 years ago
    I looked in the mirror and, after I wiped the chocolate off of my face, saw a woman who could fail spectacularly and keep going. There was no way I was going to stop writing. That seemed a far worse sentence than being turned down by a bunch of publishers. In that moment, success revealed itself. I know who I am—someone whose strivings inform her stories about the transformative forces of grief, failure, second chances, and awakening. This is the very essence of why I write.
  • browniehas quoted3 years ago
    One of life’s great truths is that everything changes and ends. As our physical body gets older, we have to find new ways to move and celebrate it. A little indulgence in the sorrow of what is gone before finding our new footing can help us make peace with the changes.
  • forgetenothas quoted3 years ago
    Our older years are a time when we are more identified and defined by the quality of our relationships, rather than by our possessions or our jobs. Meaning is now found in a sense of community, family, and connection.
  • forgetenothas quoted3 years ago
    No one I know is truly retired, at least not in the way that our parents were. The sixty-, seventy-, and even eighty-year-olds who are part of my life are artists and activists, teachers and entrepreneurs. In the southern Oregon valley where I live, it’s not unusual to run into silver-haired folks on the hiking trail or the ski slope. I dance with them at the Friday night dances at our local wineries. I’m blessed to live in a place where older age is just a part of the diversity of the community. Seniors are valued participants. The sign on the Pilates studio where I take class might as well read: MUST BE SEVENTY TO ATTEND.
  • forgetenothas quoted3 years ago
    I’ve read all the inspirational articles about embracing and celebrating your sixties and your seventies. Hell, I’ve even written some of those articles, but I have to say, whether I embrace my age or not, it’s still weird. It really does seem like twenty-seven was last week and that forty-seven was just yesterday. I have to arm myself with dignity and grace because that, and a sense of humor, is what it’s going to take.
  • forgetenothas quoted3 years ago
    Truth is, I never really ever figured out life anyway . . . I just made peace with it.
  • forgetenothas quoted3 years ago
    I have accepted that, in order be successful, I need failure. I need it because it underscores how important something is to me. And, if I let it, failure will fuel my determination and my focus. I’ve done more than just eat brownies and stay in my pajamas since I got those rejections. In spite of how miserable I felt, I still got up, closed the door of my office every day, and wrote. There are many things in life that we can’t control. The subjectivity of someone’s opinion about our work is one of them.
    Failure after fifty isn’t really that much different than failure after twenty, except that we all sweat the time-running-out thing. Maybe that’s why I feel so passionately about accepting the invitation to go deeper into the heart of what I love and reaffirm my chosen purpose. I’ll either become a viable novelist or die trying. It feels to me like two good alternatives.
  • forgetenothas quoted3 years ago
    I feel so incredibly blessed and grateful for second chances, for unexpected transformations, and for the plethora of publishers who just lit a flame under my feet, sparking my intention to keep dancing. After all, the night is young. If I should die before morning’s light, I will have done so with a heart bursting at its seams with what I know to be joyful purpose. And that is what I consider true success: to find fulfillment in what you do, regardless of the outcome.
  • browniehas quoted3 years ago
    Wild is more an authenticity that speaks truth without worrying about what others may think. Wild is the rawness of heart that drinks in the world in all its pain and all its joy. Wild is crying when the full moon rises and the geese fly overhead.
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