No sooner do we think we have assembled a comfortable life than we find a piece of ourselves that has no place to fit in

No sooner do we think we have assembled a comfortable life than we find a piece of ourselves that has no place to fit in.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another!

In the case of my husband, we found that facing a life-threatening illness prodded us to make a dramatic change in our lives.

Be willing to shed parts of your previous life. For example, in our 20s, we wear a mask; we pretend we know more than we do. We must be willing, as we get older, to shed cocktail party phoniness and admit, 'I am who I am.'

Most women have learned a great deal about how to set goals for our First Adulthood and how to roll with the punches when we hit a rough passage. But we're less prepared for our Second Adulthood as we approach life after retirement, where there are no fixed entrances or exits, and lots of sand into which it is easy to bury our heads.