Leslie A. Rasmussen's Blog

What woman in their fifties enjoys bathing suit shopping. Actually, what woman anywhere enjoys bathing suit shopping. Maybe if you lived in Alaska your whole life and it’s your first trip to Hawaii, but other than that, women know that bathing suit shopping is the one thing we all avoid. If the internet wasn’t invented and I couldn’t order online and try on in the privacy of my closet, with the door closed and the lights barely on, I’d never buy one. I’m in my later fifties, and I only wear bikinis. I’m what used to be called short, but now known as petite and one-piece suits seem to make me look even shorter, if that’s possible.

As I was planning my annual summer trip with my best friend to Ojai, I realized I needed a new bathing suit, the other five I had were lonely. Every year I think that a new bathing suit will transform my life, or at least my body. So, I did what I usually do, ordered ten suits, in various sizes and colors. When they arrived, I stood in front of my full-length mirror and assessed how they fit my rear end from every angle possible. After what feels like hours, I decide which perfect/imperfect suit was up to the job and I return the other nine.
So, in my suitcase I placed last year’s prize-winning bikini and this year’s. I wondered when I would have to wear a one piece, even if it doesn’t look great on me. When I turned forty-five, I didn’t give in, then fifty, then a few more years beyond that, and I still buy bikinis. My head’s been bombarded with what society, or the internet has said about women of a certain age. I choose to ignore them and will wear a bikini until I feel that I no longer want to wear one, not because some person I don’t know tells me that I’m too old.

The day came for me and Emma to head off to Ojai. As we changed into our suits, we gave each other the usual friend compliments. “Wow, you still look so good,” and “See, even in our fifties we can rock a bikini!” We headed to the pool, picked out the perfect lounges and peeled off our cover ups. Then reality hit. We were surrounded by women in their twenties and thirties in their tiny, and I mean tiny bikinis. Not a stitch of cellulite, no dimples in their skin, no extra folds over their belly buttons. They marched to the bar, the bathroom, the jacuzzi without cover ups. The parade of tight, amazing bodies invading our space threatening to tell us that we didn’t belong.

But we did belong. We had bodies that had gone through traumas, and loss, bore children and raised them to young adults. Emma and I looked at each other, and for a moment, we both thought about putting our coverups back on, but we didn’t. I sat with my insecurity and repeated a phrase that I had written on a post-it on my mirror at home, “Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy.” I need to repeat that phrase a lot because when I do go down that spiral, a dark cloud hovers over me, throwing shade on everything that I should be proud of. As an author, there’s always someone selling more books than I am, or a friend who goes on better vacations, or someone with a better body. When I don’t compare, I live a life of peace and contentment, and not envy and insecurity.

I reminded myself that when I was twenty or even thirty, I didn’t even have that toned, perfect figure, and no one cared. I’m a woman just under five feet who works hard to stay in shape, and no one should tell me what I can or can’t do. The funny thing was that none of those young, beautiful women were judging me. They didn’t care what I wore or what I looked like or how old I was. I was the only one judging me. So why did I feel uncomfortable? I could blame society, or Charlie’s Angels, but the truth was, I was the one putting myself down. While I could admire all these women’s bodies, I wasn’t judging the ones that didn’t have the perfect figure, and there were lots of them. I had been concentrating on the minority.

As I continue to age, which is definitely better than the alternative, I will continue to feel good in whatever I decide is right for me. I can’t say I’ll be wearing a bikini when I’m eighty, but if I decide that I want to have my long gray hair hitting my shoulders in pretty curls, and my triangle tops holding my breasts up above my naval, then I’ll do that. It’s my body and whether anyone likes it or not, I get to decide what I do with it and what I wear on it. Maybe I’ll go to Ojai and strut around, knowing that the twenty and thirty-year-old’s will one day be where I am, and hope when they are, that they, too, are proud of their bodies, and confident in who they are.

Leslie Rasmussen is the author of the award-winning novel, After Happily Ever After and her next book The Stories We Cannot Tell will be released by Touchpoint Press.
You can learn more about her on her website at: https://www.LeslieARasmussen.com
Or follow her on: Instagram @LeslieRAuthor
or Facebook @LeslieARasmussenauthor

I remember when I was the youngest one in the room.

I was in my early 20s, working at my first professional job, and my colleagues were at least twice my age. I thought they were so much more sophisticated than I was. They had children, and money issues, and were concerned about their aging parents and their medical needs. My only stress was finding the right outfit for a Saturday night date. I was free and clear with no real responsibilities other than paying my rent and getting to work on time.

When I was 22, and my parents were in their 50s, they had careers, traveled, and went out with friends, but I still thought of them as incredibly old, and I couldn’t imagine ever being their age.

But life has a way of racing ahead, and 28 years later, I celebrated my own 50th birthday. I didn’t feel “old,” or any different than I had at 40, or 30, or even 20. But society had given me the message that being 50 was not something to celebrate.

The night before I turned 49, I was distressed, worried that in a year people would know I was 50, as if that number would somehow be branded across my face. I wasted time not enjoying that year because all I could think about was what was to come. That pressure that we feel to continue to be young can take its toll. Not caving into that pressure, and enjoying your life is what keeps you youthful.

I remember one of the first times I realized I had gotten older was when I walked near a construction site. The workers looked over my head and whistled at the twentysomething young woman walking behind me. I haven’t been whistled at in years, and even though I hated it, I missed knowing that I was whistleable (if that’s even a term).
Nobody wants to deal with sexual attention from creepy guys, but you don’t want to feel sexually invisible either.

As we age, most changes are subtle, and until we look back at pictures, we often don’t see them. Depending on our health, and our situation in life, we age at different rates. Some people don’t care about how their skin and body changes, while others fight it to the end.
When I saw my first gray hair, I couldn’t stop staring at it, because it took me a while to comprehend what that thing was that was growing out of my head. I was in my 40s, and as any parent will tell you, the easiest way to get gray hair is to have children.

Parenting is a hard job, and there’s no way to know how you’re doing at the time. (You can’t count when a 12-year-old tells you that you’re the worst because you took away their screen time.)

I now know my husband and I have done a good job. Not only do our young adult sons like to spend time with us, but when we hand them petty cash, they respond, “No, thank you, I’m good.”
I still have the same energy I had in my 30s; even before I had kids. I still work out almost every day. The difference is now I’m one of the oldest in my weightlifting classes. But I’m also one of the strongest.

The women in my class are mostly in their late 30s and early 40s and have a gaggle of children. I spend weekends reading a book in front of a roaring fire while they’re at kids’ birthday parties. I’ll take getting older any day if it means not having to listen to one more person singing “Happy Birthday” to a screaming 3-year-old who doesn’t like loud noises.
When I was busy raising my two sons, I didn’t take time for myself. I didn’t have the time to exercise, or relax with a cup of coffee, unless I was willing to get up at 5:00 am, and I wasn’t giving up sleep for anything. Even my dogs got to the vet more than I got to the doctor. I did try to eat healthily, at least when I wasn’t eating leftover chicken nuggets off their plate.
But by the time I was 50, I no longer had to put everyone in front of me. I could now take care of getting that mammogram, seeing friends, and traveling with my husband.

And not having to take care of getting dinner on the table for a picky child or having to help someone study the French and Indian War when I’d rather be watching “The Bachelor” never ceases to delight me.

As women, the number of years we’ve been on the planet can brand us. For those of us who took time off from our careers to have our kids, reentering the workforce at an older age can work against us. When you’re older, you bring wisdom and experience to any situation, so employers should rush to hire us. Many of us have raised families, know how to budget, are great at organizing schedules and have good communication skills.

Getting older can also come with a new mindset. I used to concentrate on things I regretted that I had or hadn’t done. Like, why the heck did I stay with my high school boyfriend when he was obviously such a jerk? Now that I’ve lived many more years, those regrets have evaporated, because now I know that those choices have helped make me who I am today.
I also stopped caring what random people thought of me. When I was in my 20s, I wanted to be liked by everyone. I was also afraid to take risks. As I entered my 50s, I realized I have a voice and an opinion, and I’m not afraid to use either one.

So, much to my surprise, my life wasn’t over when I hit 50. Instead, I started a new chapter and reinvented myself: I became an author for the first time when my novel After Happily Ever After was published. I didn’t go through any type of “crisis;” rather, it felt more like midlife empowerment.

Fifty didn’t mean I was going to slow down at all, in fact, I found myself busier than ever. I know plenty of women who published their first books in their late 60s or 70s, and I still have a long way to go to reach those ages. (OK, maybe not a long way, but I have a lot to do in the years before I get there.)

Now that I’m older, I wonder if, when my parents hit 50, they also felt the renewed energy I’ve experienced. They were rid of their kids and could do what they wanted when they wanted. They recovered the freedom they had before my sisters, and I were born. They could even run around the house naked—although that’s not something I want to imagine.
So, maybe 50 is the new 35, and I’m good with that. But I’m also good with the idea that 50 is just 50. I’m in the prime of my life, I mostly do what I want. I am still a contributor to society, whether by writing my novels or by being there for my friends and family. I plan to keep doing all of that for many years to come.


Leslie A. Rasmussen is the award-winning author of ”After Happily Ever After.” You can follow her on Instagram @Leslierauthor or Facebook @AfterHappilyEverAfterNovel.

Previously Published on Huffington Post

You’ve probably never turned on the nightly news and heard the anchors talking about menopause or gone to a charity event where all the women were discussing who was still getting their period. That’s because menopause is something women go through mostly alone. And as our bodies and our hormones are unique to us, we don’t all share the same experience when we’re going through it. While some women experience nothing other than their period ending, other women experience the full monty of side effects, including hot flashes, weight gain and hormone swings.
Even knowing about the possible side effects, menopause was something I looked forward to. If my youth was going to go into retirement, not getting my period was a pretty good part of the severance package. Since there’s no way to know for sure when you’ll start menopause, most doctors make an educated guess by when your mother, or grandmother went through it. My mother had a hysterectomy in her forties, and there was a rumor in my family that my grandmother went through it in her 60s, but I’m hoping that’s apocryphal. I decided arbitrarily that at the age of forty-seven, my period would be over. Unfortunately, my body wasn’t on the same page.
When I turned forty-eight, almost all my friends, even ones younger, had gone through menopause. They no longer had to worry about bringing feminine products on vacation – things which still took up room in my suitcase where I could’ve brought something more important like a fourth bathing suit.
Before you go through menopause, you go through perimenopause. It’s that in-between time when you truly don’t know what your body is doing. Before perimenopause, there are distinct signs that your period is coming. The slight cramping you start to feel lets you know that you have two more weeks to feel good before you want to sell your kids to the circus. During perimenopause though, nothing you feel is a guarantee that you’re getting your period. Many times, I’d get cramps, feel lousy, start crying when my favorite show was canceled, only to find my period didn’t arrive for two more months.
Every year on my birthday, I would think: This year has to be the year when my period will stop, but every year I was wrong. When I turned fifty, my period still hadn’t disappeared, but the very next day, hot flashes and night sweats invaded my life. Happy birthday to me!
I would’ve felt sorry for my husband, but I was annoyed that he wasn’t having the same symptoms. All night, I’d roll over and throw the covers off both of us, then throw them back on when I started freezing. With each twist and turn, I woke him up. After a while, he couldn’t see straight at work, and he kindly bought me a fan for my side of the bed.
When I was fifty-one and my youngest child left for college, I was sure that my body would get the memo, that I was in a new stage of life. I was now mothering long distance; I didn’t need my reproductive organs anymore. I didn’t want to get rid of them, I just wanted them to go dormant. And no more miracle babies; I’d sent two of those off to college. I’d done my time making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and signing school emergency forms.
When I was fifty-two, at my annual gynecologist appointment, she asked me when my last period was, and I was embarrassed to say two weeks ago. Her response was that I was lucky. Lucky? I couldn’t think of one reason I was lucky, but she had many of them. She said if a woman was still getting her period it meant her estrogen levels hadn’t dropped, so her heart would be healthier, her weight easier to control, and she would feel younger. If never getting my period again meant I would be a wrinkled mess with a heart condition, I’d take it. OK, maybe I wouldn’t, I’m a little vain—but you get the point.
When I was fifty-three and working on my debut novel After Happily Ever After, I realized I’d gone three months without a period. Then it was four, then five, then six months. I was hesitant to be excited, yet I was. This was finally it! I bought a bottle of champagne and celebrated, and the next morning, I got my period, and I had to pour out the rest of the bottle. Well, actually I didn’t, who would waste Dom Perignon?
Mother Nature teased me for a few more years, and then finally at fifty-five, I was busy finishing that novel, when I realized I hadn’t gotten my period in eight months. I knew my older sister had gone ten months before starting back up again, so this time I wasn’t going to be fooled. Month after month, I waited, and when I went back to the gynecologist five months later and she asked when my last period was, I enthusiastically exclaimed that it was a year and a month ago. I was free!
Growing up, society had bombarded me with messages that after menopause since I’d no longer be able to bear children, I’d be less productive. As I got older, I realized that was ridiculous. Men were cranking out babies until they couldn’t stand up straight, and even then, they could still create life. Mick Jagger, David Foster, and Alec Baldwin all had babies after sixty and society never referred to them as old for doing it and definitely not less productive.
When you’re a teenager and you get your period the first time, you’re told that you’re now a woman. I’m not a woman because I can bear children, I’m a woman because that’s who I am. Menopause is not only just another one of life’s many transitions, but also a rebirth. As much as I’m grateful for my sons and impressed by almost everything they do, I’d always put their needs first and mine on the back burner. But by the time I went through menopause, they were independent which gave me the time to get to know myself again. I have more energy, I’m smarter and wiser and I know what I want, and I have the time to go after it.
I wish I knew all this when I was younger, but I believe society is slowly changing. After all we have our first woman vice president in her fifties, and no one’s calling her old. Although next to the president, and half of congress, she’s a spring chicken. We need to tell our daughters that whether you go through it in your early forties, or later fifties, you still have many more years ahead of you to be productive and contribute to the world around you. Embrace this end of an era, celebrate and be joyful, and pack that fourth swimsuit.

This essay was previously posted on Huffington Post.

Leslie A. Rasmussen
After Happily Ever After debuted April 6, 2021

https://www.amazon.com/After-Happily-...

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