By Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post50

Like most women my age, as the years accumulate I get more and more selective about who I consider real friends, while at the same time, more and more committed to those who form my “circle of trust.” The trouble is that paring down my inner circle can be hurtful, guilt-making, and very hard to initiate.

I practice the “drift” technique — fewer calls and dates, slower responses to e-mails — hoping that distance and silence will dissolve the tie.

The Transition Network
Washington, DC/June 5th

A conversation with Suzanne Braun Levine on “Reinventing Love, Relationships, and Intimacy in Second Adulthood” is being sponsored by the DC Chapter of The Transition Network and Civic Ventures, a nonprofit think tank on Boomers, work and social purpose, that publishes Encore.org for people interested in encore careers, jobs that combine personal meaning, continued income and social impact.

“Reinventing Intimacy,
Love and Sex After Fifty!”

The Transition Network of Long Island in partnership with Sid Jacobson JCC present, Suzanne Braun Levine, author of How We Love Now: Sex and the New Intimacy in Second Adulthood.

NYC/The Transition Network
Reinventing Love in Second
Adulthood

Join The New York City Chapter of The Transition Network for an evening with Suzanne Braun Levine sharing her groundbreaking, funny, poignant stories, interviews and research on the many ways women are finding love, and redefining their relationships in Second Adulthood.”

By Suzanne Braun Levine

This has been quite a month!

First of all, I finally held in my hands a copy of my new book How We Love Now; it has been eighteen months since I finished it, and at last it is real. The scary part is that it will soon be in the hands of actual readers, and while I am anxious to hear if it resonates with other women, I am less anxious to hear if it doesn’t, which will undoubtedly happen.

In “How We Love Now” I talk about the difference between care-giving and care-getting, by which I mean the necessity of watching out for one’s own needs even if it means asking for help (and we all know how hard that is!).

As a model for one kind of care-getting I describe the Caring Collaborative created by The Transition Network (TTN).

By Karin Lippert, 67
July 26, 2011

Are we the most engaged and empowered generation of women over 50 in recorded history? Most days it certainly feels like it. Not only are we 37 million strong, but our generation is the first to truly embrace second adulthood and celebrate our ‘Pride of Age” birthdays.

By Suzanne Braun Levine

I’m not big on change. Most of us aren’t. That becomes a bigger problem the more choices we have and the more restless we feel. Second Adulthood is about choices and restlessness and trying something new, but that means change, and many of us get stuck at the edge of the diving board.

By Suzanne Braun Levine

With your kids finally leaving home, your vision of the years ahead beginning to come into focus, and your relationships narrowing down to a precious few, you are just beginning to explore what it means to care for yourself –– when the call to care-giving comes.

Parents who had been taking care of each other suddenly lose it; partners who had been mighty oaks crack; friends who had been there for you suddenly need your support; kids in crisis show up on the doorstep.

By Suzanne Braun Levine

When my mother died recently at 94, I felt sad at losing her, but also relieved after several years of slow decline during which I always felt 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.
I …