Living Lives as Large as Our Spirits
By Prill Boyle

Whether you’re eighteen or eighty, if the answer is no, it’s not too late to make a change. Demographers estimate that one in twenty baby boomers—the generation born between 1946 and 1964—will live to be a hundred. In other words, today’s fifty-year old might well have another fifty years ahead of her. During those decades, she could earn multiple degrees, start a new business, or even join the Peace Corps.

Clearly, it’s time to rethink our roles as women, redefine the word “career,” and revise our assumptions about aging. Consider retired bank vice-president Evelyn Gregory, who fulfilled a lifelong dream and became a flight attendant at 71. For the past five years she’s been working for US Air Express, inspiring people wherever she goes. Or Linda Bach, who taught algebra before entering the University of Miami Medical School at age 46. Now 54, she’s in private practice in Miami Shores, Florida. Or Irma Elder, who thought of herself as a shy housewife until she was widowed at age 52. Today she’s the head of Elder Automotive Enterprises, one of the ten largest Hispanic-owned companies in the nation.

These late bloomers didn’t just switch careers; they blossomed into the fullness of themselves. How did they do it? Making a life shift isn’t all that different from restructuring a business. But whereas a business owner can hire consultants to evaluate a company’s strengths and weaknesses and suggest a new course, individuals don’t always know themselves well enough to enable others to guide them effectively.

When we’re unclear what our gifts are, when our dreams remain out of focus, the first step in moving forward is often to ask, “What am I doing right now that’d I like to stop?” One late bloomer said, “I started to feel like I was on a hamster wheel. Gradually I began to realize that I was just working to pay expenses—and not living. I started asking myself how I was going to get away from that.” She eventually bought back the historic home she’d lived in as a child, refashioning it into a profitable bed & breakfast.

Those who’ve blossomed later in life validate their past, learn from it, and move on. They don’t allow traces of bitterness to tarnish their souls. When another late bloomer’s marriage ended, she said, “I knew I had two routes I could take. I could either wallow in self-pity and do nothing with myself, or I could pick up the ball and run. I chose the latter.” At age 48, she won a seat in the Connecticut House of Representatives.

Perhaps most importantly, successful late bloomers turn a deaf ear to self-doubt and ignore their naysayers. They care deeply about people, but cease caring what others think of their choices. One breast cancer survivor who subsequently became a photographer in her late 40’s noted that people were always cautioning her against choosing an artistic vocation. They warned that she wouldn’t be able to make ends meet and advised her to work in the corporate world instead. But after going through a tormented period of wondering whether she should pursue her passion, or take a more practical route, she thought, “I have to follow my heart. . . . I have to go for it.” Today her work is celebrated in national magazines and exhibited in galleries around the country.

If you still think it’s too late to pursue your dreams, keep in mind a woman who was interviewed on National Public Radio on her hundredth birthday. Asked if she had any regrets about her life, she paused for a moment and replied, “If I had known I would live to be a hundred, I would have taken up the violin at 40. By now I could have been playing for 60 years!"

Prill Boyle is the author of Defying Gravity: A Celebration of Late-Blooming Women (Emmis Books, 2004). To learn more about the women mentioned in this story, go to www.prillboyle.com.