Midlife Transitions, don't fight the flow

Happy Father's Day:)

Dad and I sharing our superb taste in lilac clothing.

Happy Father’s Day! I hope you and yours are having a nice calm weekend and if you’re lucky…hanging out with your Dad.

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Midlife and knowing who your friends are…

Part of the ladies who came to my opening…in front of one of my paintings.

Art Show Opening…

An enormous thank you to these ladies and a bunch of others who came to my latest art opening! It really means a lot when people show up to these events, and I am deeply grateful! Thank you Djamila, Kate, Elizabeth, Tiverton, Maria, Tess, Ani, Carolyn, Julie, Emily, Chili and apologies for those I am missing.

I am having a show all Summer with a lot of my art at this perfect center of interior design and home accessories in Chestnut Hill, MA, Elizabeth’s Home Decor.

It’s a wonderland of must haves for the home, and what is art but a must have for your home?

kimdstockwellstudio

A post shared by @kimdstockwellstudio

Midlife Transitions….

I’ve been reading a lot about midlife transitions lately and The Atlantic has been dong a bang up job covering it. Basically, if you go with the flow of aging you will find yourself in the happiest period of your life.

If you start cutting out the frivolous stuff you've over scheduled yourself with over the past twenty years and allow yourself to, as Arthur C Brooks notes in his article sited below, “work to change your objective by stepping away from voluntary duties and responsibilities, and making more time to think, read, love, and pray—the work that you need to do to reengineer you” you will find yourself in a place of midlife splendor.

If you fight aging you end up in “stagnation”, as Brooks says in this week’s Atlantic article, The Two Choices That Keep a Midlife Crisis at Bay, Middle age is an opportunity to find transcendence, “….which can lead to a crisis, (and) happens when you try to fight against time, whether you’re desperately trying not to look older or struggling against changes in your skills and strengths.”

Basically, do the best with what you’ve got and don’t let the fact that we are definitely loosing skills we were great at, and we are absolutely looking older, negate the fact that we can gain new skills and age with grace. That doesn’t mean I am against doing stuff like fighting the gray and some injectables, but let’s just look our best, not like someone else.

The very cool thing about aging, regardless of what you’re doing, is that all of your friends are too. There is something so comforting about that and we are all in this together.

So, let’s hear more about it from you….

What is the most surprising part of being in this stage of life?

Let’s talk abut it. For some it’s a very hard time. We have physical changes, our kids are moving on and we aren’t sure what to do with this big chunk of time we find ourselves with. For other’s it is a time to experiment and get moving.

Below is my answer to the question above, but I am really interested in hearing from you!

I had always heard how awful menopause and aging was. Not from my mom but from society and how they treat women no longer in the breeding pool. I’ve been surprised at how fun it is!

I don’t have to worry about all the things one worries about when younger: career, getting married, having kids and getting the kids through school and into college etc etc etc.

There was an undercurrent of competition with all the life milestones that just doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over. Now it’s about, what’s next? What do I/we want to do with the time we have?

I am collecting volunteers for the questionnaire…so please drop me a line and leave a comment if you are open to my newest experiment!

Father’s Day past post…

xo

K