Jean Peelen
Meet the face
behind the website
 

Until age 35, I was a stay-at-home wife and mother. The civil rights movement propelled me into activism. I went to law school dragging my kids behind me, determined to make this world better and fairer. For the next 20 years, I was a civil rights lawyer for the Federal government. In my last few years of working, I became unsatisfied with the notion that I was on some sort of tried-and-true path.

 

It was almost time for retirement, but then what? I was reading writers like Michael Ruiz, and Deepak Chopra, and Eckhart Tolle. Transformational workshops opened me to the possibility that I could be the sole, uncontested author of my life; that I can decide how I want to live this life.

 

From that moment on I decided to choose my life, and to live it fully, out loud, and possibly outrageously.

I retired at 60 and between then and 70, modeled commercially in print and on tv, hosted a radio show for “women of a certain age,” and co-authored two books about life after 50.

 

I retired again to a beach in Florida, entirely expecting to go gentle into that good night. That lasted for about a year, then I ran for office in my little town. I served my community for six years on the City Commission.

 

But something unexpected happened. I got old. Or at least the world thought I did. I packed my bags, and retired, yet again, to a tiny house village in North Carolina. I had been here for two years, playing bridge, and attending Taco Trivia Tuesdays, when Covid appeared. To keep from getting too bored or lonely, I took a couple of on-line writing courses. And WHAM, I now am again un-retired.

 

My passion for writing came flooding back. Since I am about to turn 80, I thought it time to figure out what my life has been about…really about. And that is where I am today. Writing, editing, website creating, and in love with the idea that I can help change the paradigm of aging, not only for myself but for all of my sisters in age. 

There is an ancient Sufi saying: “When the ego weeps for what it has lost, the spirit rejoices for what it has found.”

 

And I say “Amen!”