An online journal for women engaging the third third of their lives.
The Third Third Topic: Lifestyle
The Third Third is a newly recognized developmental stage, not unlike adolescence. It is a transitional time, as we move from one age to another (hence the term ?aging?), and it has symptoms, some liberating, some painful. Here we're defining what it means and how we live.
Perspectives on Lifestyle
Alma Mater
When I was a student in the late 60’s, my alma mater, Wellesley College, adhered to the legal theory, in loco parentis. The administration decreed it was acting “in place of” our parents, dictating when we could go out, and for how long, and establishing consequences should w...
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LIFESTYLE | 96 Views | 0 Comments
No Time to Write
It’s getting increasingly difficult to find the time to write about The Third Third, the more I live into its issues.
It takes a pretty big chunk of time to attend to the parent we moved to town, for example. Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful he is here....
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LIFESTYLE | 62 Views | 0 Comments
Olympics of the Mind
We are a competitive sort, we baby boomers.
And it appears we have found our next arena.
In an ongoing effort to stave off dementia, Alzheimer’s, and even the benign-but-prejudice-causing vicissitudes of aging, we are intent on keeping our minds active and engaged.Equipped with studies...
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LIFESTYLE | 126 Views | 0 Comments
The First Day of School, Again
Do you remember how much bigger – and older – you felt walking into a fourth grade classroom on the first day of school, compared to when you were a third grader? As I recall, even the desks were larger in the fourth grade classrooms, but perhaps that didn’t really happen until fi...
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LIFESTYLE | 187 Views | 0 Comments
From the Mountains: Promises. But no Apologies.
This summer I’ve read a huge number of Blogger apologies: "So sorry. I was on vacation and just got back. I sent a few postcards from Wherever, but that’s all. . . ." "My Apologies. I promised to write every day, but the time just flew by. . . ." "Please excuse the absence of entri...
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LIFESTYLE | 194 Views | 0 Comments
Lessons from My 20-Somethings
Ours is not to approve or disapprove. Not that it ever was, really. I remember that lesson in the child-rearing books, the one that instructed us not to say “I’m so proud of you!” but, rather, to build the child’s self-esteem by declaring instead, “You must be so pr...
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LIFESTYLE | 212 Views | 0 Comments
Make Every Day Undying
I have repeatedly recommended the New York Times blog, The New Old Age, where Jane Gross and other baby-boom-aged writers navigating the challenging labyrinth of care for their parents at the end of their lives share their experiences, frustrations, and resources. But I looked at the site’...
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LIFESTYLE | 191 Views | 0 Comments
Never Too Late to Change the World
Is your Peace Corps spirit alive and well? Are you still itching to “save the world?” Are there places you’ve always wanted to see and things you’ve always meant to do? Are you Retired and Ready? Or Ready, anyway? NGOabroad (http://www.NGOabroad.com) may be the program f...
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LIFESTYLE | 212 Views | 0 Comments
Once More with Feeling: Finding an Apartment
I have been apartment shopping again. Not for myself -- it’s been 38 years since I last needed a lease – but for the daughter who’s going to law school in the fall. I’m experienced. I’ve honed my skills in Cambridge, MA for the daughter in Divinity School; in Dall...
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LIFESTYLE | 253 Views | 0 Comments
Poster Child for the Third Third?
I met a woman this weekend I may have to nominate as a Poster Child for The Third Third. A former professional opera singer, pianist, wife, civic volunteer, and mother of three grown children, she looked ahead when her daughter was in high school and decided a life stage dedicated to golf, tennis a...
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LIFESTYLE | 276 Views | 0 Comments
Go Play With Your Friends!
“Go play with your friends!” With that, mothers almost everywhere when we were young could get us out of the house, out from underfoot. We were less able to do the same with our children. We’d have to take our kids to play “dates” with friends, and organize their s...
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LIFESTYLE | 329 Views | 0 Comments
Sticking Points
“Stuck” is not a pleasant word. In fact, it’s almost onomatopoeic, for it’s clearly not pleasant to be stuck, either. But “stuck” is where we are, according to a new book, The Hourglass Solution – A Boomer’s Guide to the Rest of Your Life, by soci...
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LIFESTYLE | 321 Views | 0 Comments
Me and Maggie
I have lived through four sets of the Terrible Two’s, one particularly difficult case of the F---ing Fours, and several adolescences that have gone on for decades. But I have never been embarrassed by my children’s behavior. Nor has anything they have ever done been destructive. Furth...
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LIFESTYLE | 356 Views | 0 Comments
Lost Your Zest? Get It Back!
(Chloe Jon Paul, M.Ed., is a retired educator and author of the new book, "Entering the Age of Elegance: A Rite of Passage & Practical Guide for the Modern Maturing Woman," from which this essay is an excerpt.) Many years ago, I heard a sermon that focused on attitude. The part I especially remem...
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LIFESTYLE | 297 Views | 0 Comments
The Great Retirement Experiment
The Retirement Experiment was, in fact, simply an extended stay in our second home in the mountains. The experiment involved measuring the effect of five weeks away from the office on a husband who’s making noise about retiring at the end of the year. The results were not impressive. We d...
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LIFESTYLE | 417 Views | 0 Comments
Why I Retired at 55
Why? Why? Why? I must have been asked that question 1,000 times in the weeks following the announcement that I would retire. “Why?” by the way, was often followed by “Can I have your job?” The job? Daily newspaper consumer columnist. Being part voyeur and part fairy ...
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LIFESTYLE | 418 Views | 0 Comments
We're Not Done Yet!
The new 40-something publisher of the Washington Post recently appointed a new 40-something editor of the newspaper, broadcasting to media watchers and Washington movers and shakers alike that change is, decidedly, on the Pulitzer prize-winning organization’s menu. Change would be a good th...
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LIFESTYLE | 246 Views | 0 Comments
Too Much Stuff
I have long harbored the suspicion that we have too much stuff. While I am an inveterate thrower-outer, my husband is an equally stubborn archivist of everything he has ever touched or considered. We have his grade school report cards, the campaign materials from the student council president e...
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LIFESTYLE | 1374 Views | 0 Comments
Thoughts on The Third Third
The terrain is rocky on this journey. It may not be a place you want to go alone. It helps, actually, to know you’re not alone. At the same time, you need to be free, and to travel light, and you need to be strong, at times defiant and, at the least, purposeful. In an effort to help better...
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LIFESTYLE | 530 Views | 0 Comments
Uncertain Perceptions of "A Certain Age"
I recently found a fascinating article about the impact of federal policy on our perception of what it means to be old in this country ("Old-Age Policies, Politics, and Ageism" by Robert H. Binstock) on The American Society on Aging website (www.asaging.org). It was, frankly, nothing I had ever thou...
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LIFESTYLE | 395 Views | 0 Comments
Blog entries on Lifestyle
Sunset Daze
They want to change the way we look at life in a retirement community. By making it a reality show. Ouch. The much-hyped new series Sunset Daze debuted this month on we.tv, a subscription-based, on-demand network that calls itself “the premier source f...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 77 Views | 0 Comments | May 05, 2010 11:41:58 am
Finding Meaning
Would you consider establishing "Finding Meaning in the 3rd Third" as a separate category? I think that this is the deepest--and least discussed--aspect of the last third of life. For many of us, the jobs/relationships/issues which gave meaning to our lives in the 2nd third are now receding. What ...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 342 Views | 0 Comments | July 10, 2009 08:59:48 am
Turn, Turn, Turn
Turning 60 was like being told I had six months to live,” writes Vivian Gornick in the June issue of Persimmon Tree, the online magazine. Hers is one of a series of provocative, reflective essays by women writers called “Turn, Turn, Turn” on “Turning” 60, 70, 80, 90, and ...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 295 Views | 0 Comments | June 18, 2009 09:11:47 am
The Hourglass Solution
The Hour Glass Solution: A Boomer's Guide to the Rest of Your Life is all about recognizing -- and making -- choices, according to authors Paula Forman and Jeff Johnson. Further, they posit, most of us are "stuck" and unwilling and afraid to make those choices that might enhance what they call (I l...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 344 Views | 0 Comments | April 06, 2009 09:24:54 am
Tell Me When
Is there ever a right time to retire? Apparently, not when you're on top, according to a conversation posted this week on the self-proclaimed at-the-top-of-their-games women's website WOWOWOW. But if your job is just a job, or your career has doneII8 its job, what is the right time? Join in the c...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 326 Views | 0 Comments | March 31, 2009 4:41:46 pm
One Fabulous Geezer
I found an old friend and writing colleague on Facebook and learned she has an online journal, too, called Geezer Sisters. Her writing is precise; her thoughts, poignant; and her humor, wry. She wears many hats as a writer, but this is a particularly sharp one. Enjoy!...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 326 Views | 0 Comments | February 17, 2009 10:33:08 am
Writers of the Age
I recently discovered an online journal which features the work of older women writers, some of it absolutely lovely. There's a particularly fascinating discussion with the author Mary Gordon in the new winter edition. And archived issues are also available online at http://www.persimmontree.org....
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 353 Views | 0 Comments | January 14, 2009 2:56:19 pm
Messy Empty Nests
Empty Nesters: You are not alone with your tears and your boxes of tissues! Read “When Children Leave” by Lisa Belkin in The New York Times Thursday, September 18. As she writes, “Empty nest. It sounds neat, spare, and tidy, but it can be a messy time.”...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 442 Views | 0 Comments | September 18, 2008 1:50:44 pm
Who Are You? Use Six Words.
My friend Dr. Mary Anne Reed, a teacher and licensed therapist, called my attention to SMITH Magazine's book Not Quite What I Was Planning a collection of individual's -- famous, infamous, and not -- six word descriptions of their lives -- and to the magazine's continuing contest at www.smithmag.net...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 407 Views | 0 Comments | July 22, 2008 11:29:55 am
Welcome to My World, Ladies
Just saw, today, in the New York Times, word that several high profile, media-savvy women "of a certain age" are launching a new blog/social networking site called wowowow.com constructed to provide online content worthy of their attention and that of their peers, in the style of TV's "The View." I...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 455 Views | 0 Comments | March 06, 2008 11:52:58 am
Are you a Ruppie?
(That would be a "Retired Urban Person"). City planner Kyle Ezell, who wrote Retire Downtown, thinks we should be -- that living downtown will keep us active and engaged, on our feet (walking) and on our toes (taking classes, volunteering, enjoying the arts). Have you given it any thought? Learn ...
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Category: LIFESTYLE | 408 Views | 0 Comments | February 15, 2007 12:38:57 am
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