I’ve been writing a lot about my own girlfriends lately in connection with my new e-book You Gotta Have Girlfriends: A Post-fifty Posse is Good for Your Health, and each time I sit down to describe my “circle of trust” I wonder what to do with my lifelong guyfriend Nick. Our friendship is as profound and historic as any I have with a woman, but it is also different.

I’m not crazy about the current Dove campaign in which a police artist draws a portrait of a forty-ish woman from her description (dour and harsh) and then draws another from the description by another woman who has spent a little time with her (warmer and more pleasant looking); the punch line is “you are more beautiful than you think.”

This is not news. We have been prettier than we thought all along. When we are not comparing ourselves unfavorably to models and movie stars — who, the fan magazines show us gleefully, don’t look at all like their glamorous selves when out doing errands — we are comparing present selves with our younger selves.

Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post 50

As any woman who has lost her mother does, I think of her especially on Mother’s Day. In fact, I think I will always consider Mother’s Day her day, not mine. And when I think of her life, I also remember the gift of her peaceful death.

When she died at 94, I felt sad, of course, but also relieved after several years of slow decline during which no matter how I tried to give her what she needed, I was one degree of deterioration behind in caring for her. And I felt grateful — grateful to her for the loving and gracious way she took her slow leave, and very grateful to the hospice team that guided our last months together. Thanks to them, she died at home, smiling to the end.

Cyma Shapiro
Motheringinthemiddle.com

Q: On the heels of your last book How We Love Now: Women Talk About Intimacy After Fifty, what compelled you to write this new book?

With each book about women of my generation – Inventing the Rest of Our Lives, Fifty Is the New Fifty, How We Love Now – I talked to more women, did more research, and learned more about the exciting new stage of life we are exploring. Every interview, no matter how wide-ranging, eventually got to the subject of girlfriends. “I couldn’t have done it without my girlfriends!” was the phrase I heard over and over again. I realized that I needed to write a book that focused on that life-enhancing subject. Hence, my just-out e-book You Gotta Have Girlfriends: A Post-Fifty Posse is Good for Your Health.

My “post-fifty posse” has lost Mary Thom, and it is hard to imagine how it will be at our next monthly dinner. We won’t need a round table for five any more.

Mary was the quintessential trusted colleague – she knew what needed to be done, how it needed to be done and what her part was – as well as the best kind of girlfriend.

My Post-Fifty Posse

We are five former Ms. magazine colleagues who have been having dinner together once a month for over 20 years. We like to try new places, which is a good thing, since I am not sure we would be welcome back to a restaurant after a visit. We generally sit there for three or four hours, order an assortment of appetizers, laugh uproariously — and pay with five credit cards!

A Mini Blog Tour
For My Ebook

You Gotta Have Girlfriends is a traveling “circle of trust “- of love and support – on the Internet shared by my girlfriends. Join me to celebrate our post-fifty posses and ourselves on the blogs and websites of my pioneering girlfriends. — Suzanne

“Suzanne Levine takes us beyond the frontier of our own expectations and into a new and hope-filled stage of life.”
– Gloria Steinem

May 18-19, 2013
Denver, Colorado

Ruthie Neubauer, my most cherished childhood friend, has become a wise therapist and with Karen Van Allen leads workshops for women like us. The next “Retirement or WHAT NEXT™” weekend is May18-19th, in Denver, CO. — Suzanne

This Weekend is for you if you…

Feel pressure to respond to the question: What do I do with the rest of my life? Know what you want but feel inhibited. Feel isolated with your inner questions. Wish to express yourself in new ways. Want support to play with ideas and dreams. Plan to retire and have concerns.

You Gotta Have Girlfriends!
by Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post50

My first ebook – You Gotta Have Girlfriends – A Post-Fifty Posse Is Good For Your Health – came out this week and I’m sharing the news on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Huff/Post50 has a feature that I’ve written – with a slide show of personal photos, movie clips and famous quotes on friendship. I hope you will visit the page, and Comment, Tweet and Share it – widely!

by Mary Eileen Williams
Feisty Side of Fifty

YOUR TRUE BODY-MIND CONNECTION

It’s been said that, as we age, our body-mind connection becomes even more important to our overall fitness. How we view our lives, what we think about growing older, and the importance we give to taking care of ourselves are major factors in the state of our wellbeing. But, perhaps not so surprisingly, it’s a different type of connection that impacts our health in a major way. It turns out that those wonderful women who share our lives rank right at the top of the list—especially during the second half of life.

By Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post 50

In her widely debated new book Lean In, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg called it “the ultimate chicken and egg situation.” She is talking about the endless back and forth about what is holding women back from Having It All, whether the system needs to change in order for women to get ahead or whether women need to get ahead to change the system.

By Ann Voorhees Baker
Women at Woodstock 2013

So happy to be able to share this great news on my site! I love my radio programs with Eileen on “Feisty Side of Fifty” radio and am glad I will seeing her the West Coast (July 28-31,2013) and East Coast (October 6-9, 2013) Women at Woodstock retreats for women 50 (or so) & up — Suzanne Braun Levine

Suzanne Braun Levine
Open Road Integrated Media

You Gotta Have Girlfriends – A Post-Fifty Posse is Good For Your Health is the fourth installment of my on-going exploration of women’s lives after fifty – the stage known as Second Adulthood – and my first ebook. The book will be available on April 16th from my digital publisher Open Road Integrated Media, a company co-founded and run by my friend Jane Friedman, the CEO.

The special nature of our friendships with women – Our Circle of Trust – is one of the main themes in all my books, blogs, lectures, and interviews and it is at the core of the on-going story of my generation as we grow, change, age, and discover our authentic selves.

A Conversation with
Suzanne Braun Levine

Q. What do you think are the major changes or shifts that occur for women in second adulthood when it comes to relationships?

A. By the time women reach second adulthood, they have accumulated confidence and they are beginning to know what they want in a relationship. We are less needy, we’re about finding, not losing, ourselves in a relationship. Women say they feel more empowered to set the terms in a new relationship or to renegotiate a long-term marriage. Our requirements have shifted. The thoughtful man with a Ph.D. In life experience becomes more appealing as we age – not like old days when the “bad boy” was the sexy choice. By the time we’re fifty we know what love is and what it isn’t.

Marc Freedman
Encore.org

As the great midlife migration of baby boomers gathers momentum and scale, long-predicted revolutions in longevity and demography are unfolding in front of us. By 2015 we’ll have more Americans over 60 than under 15 — and that’s just the beginning. Demographers are predicting that more than half the children born in the developed world since 2000 will live to 100.