An Update on My Next Book!
As those of you know who have already filled out my questionnaire about intimacy, I am working on a book about how this mysterious, precious, and elusive condition is experienced by women in our fifties, sixties and seventies. The valentine season is an invitation to issue a progress report on my findings.
Mysterious and personal as love is, it knows no age limits. Studies of the brain chemistry of people in love revealed neurological activity that was “the same whether the individual as 18 or 50-plus,” says Helen Fisher who conducted the research. “The body gets older but the basic emotion – the need to be in love – remains the same.”
The longing for intimacy is particularly strong and particularly poignant in a time of emotional turmoil, as the transition to Second Adulthood is. We are well aware of how many relationships are foundering at this stage and of the widows who are finding themselves alone for the first time in their lives. We know how hard it is for older women to find companionship, sex and understanding. What we don’t know enough about is how love is for those who are experiencing it. This may be because the women who are enriching or finding love are afraid of jinxing it by talking about it, or they may be afraid to “gloat” when their friends are complaining of loneliness and no sex lives. If we knew more about how love is pursued, found, and sustained by women like us, we would be able to learn from their experience. The first thing we would learn is that love is very different in Second Adulthood.
There are many people to whom I regularly say, “I love you” – and mean it. But – as my outlook, my priorities and relationships have been reconsidered in recent years – the feeling feels different. By this, my third book on the life changes that are Second Adulthood, I know that if I want to figure out what is going on for me, I need to check in with other women about their lives. When I did, I heard stories about all kinds of surprising and nurturing, life-long and unconventional connections. Of the countless women who are experiencing this new intimacy, many have hit the cob-webbed stone wall that we have climbed so many times since we began to tell the truth about our lives: “I must be the only one who feels this way” and/ or “I must be crazy.” No and no, I have found.
The first thing I noticed in the interviews was the “eyes light up” factor – the delight with which they would talk about a special person – a partner, a grandchild, a friend, a special student or mentee, even a beloved pet. This expression of comfort and joy is not only metaphorical; the glow is due to a literal shot of hormonal delight that nature has granted us throughout our lives. Countless studies show that in moments of intimacy oxytocin – the so-called “cuddle” or “social bonding” hormone – is released into the blood stream. The first bond is the gaze between mother and child, but others accumulate throughout our lives with every trusting and tender relationship we establish.
As those “eyes-light-up” conversations got going, we asked each other these questions:
Why am I more confident of being able to count on those I love than before?
Why do I feel more intensely about the inner orbit of my intimate world and less about the people in the outer rings?
Why am I clearer about what I expect from those I love and more accepting of what can’t be changed?
Why do I accept and sometimes cherish the places where love cannot go – where I am on my own?
Why is love more fun now?
The answers to such questions have a lot to do with who is doing the loving. The rocky ride into Second Adulthood has called upon resources we didn’t know we had. For many the first challenges are the result of fall-out from the liberating defiance that washes over us as our estrogen retreats. At some point each of us blurts out the unexpected revelation “I don’t care what people think anymore!” After a lifetime of seeking as much approval as possible, the notion of rejecting it is mind-blowing. That phrase becomes the rallying cry of what I call The Fuck You Fifties (a naughty double entendre in this context).
Speaking truth and especially speaking truth to power become the currency, and discovering the truth about ourselves – authenticity – become a goal. Not the classic ingredients of a love story. But we are writing a new one.