"LIFE begins at 40" - Brenda

Meet Brenda, 66 year young lady, who's beauty radiates from within and spills over, leaving everyone who meets her comforted and inspired!

Brenda decided to have this experience because she's feeling a disconnect between how she's feeling inside and who she sees in the mirror...

"I will be 67 yrs old in August - I can feel my body's age - aches, pains, stiffness - but my soul, my essence feels much younger.   Also because I am curious about who other people see when they see me."

I asked Brenda to answer to some questions and she kindly and eagerly shared a bit of her wisdom and life story....

I am from a very small village , about 9 hours north of here.  My village is now an official ghost town.  We grew up close to the land, picking berries etc, moose running down our Main Street in the summer, bears raiding our gardens.  This is an extremely different life than that lived in southern Ontario.  
I am the oldest of 6 children.  Ours was a Roman Catholic home and the Catholic school was a french school so that is where we went to school.  I was bussed 1 1/2 hrs to high school. most girls were married and had children by the time they were 17 yrs old.
I left to go to college and never lived there again.  

​I did not marry until I was 40, unfortunately missing my opportunity to have and raise my own children.  My husband is a great man, and we have made a good life for ourselves.  After his mother passed suddenly, my father in law managed on his own for some time but eventually we each sold our houses and bought a home where he could live with us...are you seeing a pattern my life has taken.  My father in law lived with us for 12 years...he passed away 4 months ago at 96 yrs of age.

​My biggest accomplishments I think are the  flying lessons I took - conquering my fear of flying and then actually learning to love it!! Surviving 3 car accidents in 3 years and doing the work  it took to bring my body back from the damage they caused,.  That I continue to learn to be happy with just being with me.  I always found it ironic that when I stopped looking for a partner, when I accepted my life as it was...there he was!!

"My teaching moment is that life can tempt us as women to give all of ourselves away, but to stay healthy and strong we need to balance care of others with care of ourselves. Easier said than done and a struggle I battle day after day. Self care and personal growth are a life time endeavour. Also, don't let fear stop you...try new things, take chances.  Failure is not the worst thing that can happen to  you."

​Beauty secret....huh...that's a tough one. I think my secret is one I am coming to quite late in life.   Make peace with your body...the one you have, not the one you want..  I wasted a lot  of time and money trying to follow fads that were never created with me in mind.  I wish I could have known that a few pieces that fit right are better than a closet full of not quite rights.  I have wide feet and a high arch.  Buying shoes was and continues to not be easy.  I have forced my feet into shoes they were never meant to be in. I have good sized breasts and small shoulders, again off the rack shopping takes hours and sometimes I could cry. In my later yrs, I am not the size 8 I was pre menopause...I am a more like a size 16, well some parts of my body are

"What I love about being my age...that I think of myself as wise, that I have learned to separate the wheat from the shaft so to speak.  That I don't care as much what others think of me."

I think my days of looking after others is pretty much done.  Before I married I was travelling and now that my husband and I are both retired, and we are on our own, we both want to experience wanderlust....I want to move to a smaller house, one where I can spend less time cleaning so I can pick up my camera more.  I'd like to figure out how to get that awesome printer I have working again so I can go back to printing my photos too.

"I would advise my 20 year old self that she is not broken, that she ready  for the world.  I would tell her that my decision to leave my tiny village and explore the world is the best decision I can make and I will never regret it, that I will have experiences I could never have dreamed of and will enjoy taking huge bites out of this new world that I will discover"