If Not Now, When?: Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife

I just finished reading If Not Now, When? and it is the best I have read about women and midlife and I've read a lot. As I read through the chapters, savoring them to make them last longer, I felt like I found myself in the stories of other women and that was truly comforting. I just turned 45 and I heard my inner voice saying "I'm doing something right." The presentation, the stories, the humor, the information were a perfect mix. This book spoke so deeply to me. I can't tell you how many women I have recommended it to.

I loved this book. It is one of the most insightful and encouraging books I've read on how to make midlife a rich and meaningful time. I tend to think that what I experience in my life is just about me. This book has shown me that it's as much about "us" as "me." It has allowed me to see that midlife for women has some common themes that we all share. This book validated my experience. It's a book that inspires the renewal of lost promises with ourselves. It gives a clear and exciting voice to all the feelings we women struggle to express. I feel a sigh of relief-somebody gets it!! Each chapter was worth the price of admission.

Stephanie Marston has become one of my newest and closest "best friends". Reading this book was reminiscent of having a long talk with my best friend, having her listen to my every word as I shared my inner most thoughts, then having her answer all my questions and take away any doubts that what I've been experiencing is common among women my age and I am not losing my mind. I was hooked and yearning for more after reading just the first chapter and you will be too! This is definitely a "must-read" for any woman past the age of 45.

Stephanie Marston is one of the most sought-after experts on women and midlife. She interviewed a large number of women for this book and combined it with her own experience for a book that sheds a lot of light on what it means to be a woman during that mystical and misunderstood phase of life, menopause. In one part of the book, the author describes how she goes through her closet, tossing out designer high heels that pinch, clothes that are too tight in the waist, that itch, and replaces them with comfortable clothes that reflected her new feelings about herself. This is a wonderful metaphor for what many of the women in "If Not Now, When?" go through in their relationships. Marriages are suddenly confining, "going-along-to-get-along" no longer works. Passive acceptance of all kinds of things, from being the chief organizer of holiday dinners to shutting an eye to infidelity is no longer tolerable. Women who are at the age of menopause may feel a simultaneous burst of anger and liberations. It's not all bad. In fact, it can be pretty darn good!This book talks about the psychology of maturity for women. It expands on what Christine Northrup calls "the lifting of the veil of hormones" and shows what positive changes lie ahead for women who may have suppressed their true identity for most of their lives. Women who once relied on beauty to manipulate the world look in the mirror and realize that despite the best that exercise, diet, cosmetics and surgery can give them, they are no longer youthful goddesses. Their entire way of dealing with and being dealt with changes Marston describes how women are socialized from birth to bury part of their true selves, to be "good girls," to willingly lose games to boys, to place their light under a bushel. This is why girls who do well in elementary school suddenly drop behind the boys as they go to middle school and reach menarche. A quote in the book from Emily Hancock remarks that there is a "buried core of women's identity...a root identity that gets cut off in the process of growing up female." At the time of menopause, women begin to regain this identity, fueled by the lifting of the veil of hormones and the completion of the phase of life where motherhood and physical attractions are the main thing women are valued for.There are 40 million women, baby boomers, facing menopause. Up until now, medicine has viewed menopause, like childbirth, as a medical condition to be "treated." Now women are redefining what it means to be a complete, mature woman and they are a powerful presence. If you are a woman of any age old or young, this book will be of incredible value to provide insights into what it means to be a woman and to be yourself.

Negotiating midlife is a challenging process for either gender. But for women in particular, this passage is a largely uncharted sea. One can find books that talk about menopause and other physical aspects of midlife. Yet our complex emotional lives have been left curiously unmapped. And now, finally, finally, FINALLY along comes Marston's wonderful book. As I read each chapter, I felt myself to be in the company of a variety of likeable women who were engaged in the difficult but glorious struggle of becoming their best selves in the second half of their lives. The book was, at once, permission giving and inspiring; instructional but never pedantic; clear and elegantly simple, yet very, very smart. It's a compendium of teaching tales, a guidebook, a companion--with Marston's clear-eyed and humorous voice anchoring throughout.I have a small pile of favorite books by my bedside. It's these books I turn to in the middle of the night when I am being kept awake by crazy, nameless anxieties. (You know the ones I mean, the nasty little beasts that creep out from under the bedroom rug at 3AM.) At those moments, I look to my collection of best loved books as friends that will calm me, bring me back to my center, remind me of what I already know deep down, but have momentarily forgotten. Just this morning, I took Stephanie Marston's book and put it on the very top of that pile of wise and comforting volumes.