Sorting out our Priorities in 40s

Priorities contain the intensity to shuffle in every turn in a woman’s lifetime. Notably, as soon as we stride through the threshold of the fourth decade of our life, we ought to fasten our seat belts and set our priorities straight. Prior to this era, our lives were somehow sorted and we were aware of how to give in to the status quo. Tradition and society have decided beforehand what our priorities would be till here.

But now, our kids are grown, our home is perfect and family life is sorted. In the nutshell, all the major adjustments to be made are done. We fought a battle following the basic route, got educated, married and entered motherhood. During the journey, we lost our youth, sacrificed health and ignored knowledge. Everything we nurtured grew up and strode on their ways but we stayed stagnant, following the same old routine of every housewife.

Sadly, tradition and society helps us no longer to sort our priorities once we turn forty. We are practically jobless, hobby-less, childless and friendless. It’s never too late to press the reset button and jumble up the list of priorities. Now the things that never drew our attention are screaming for help. It’s high time that now we turn selfish from selfless and make our top priority to take care of ourselves.

1.           So, the first priority should be health, something that we’ve ignored for a very long time. And now our body’s sending weird signals to wake up and start looking after ourselves. As we now have more time in our hands, we can certainly sneak out an hour for our body and start following a healthy routine.
2.           Finding a hobby should be the second on the list. It’s the best way to beat the anxiety and stress that we feel due to the turbulence in our raging hormones as many of us are preparing to hit menopause soon enough. So grab a painting brush, or hold a ladle, share your household tips, or do anything that reaches out to make you smile. It’s the first step forward towards self discovery. If a handful of us are ambitious enough then this may lead to an opening for a career.
3.            Grab your searchlights and hunt for a Soul Sister. And once a week make it a point to meet over lunches or coffee. This is, believe me, the only way to vent out our feelings and empty our filled up hearts. We are emotional species and we really need someone who understands us, preferably women. And husbands strictly don’t fall into this category.
4.            Our spouses are our partners in life. So they deserve more of our time now. Let’s re-ignite the old flames and start re-dating our better halves or watch movies with him, or a trip to the place where you could never enter with kids hanging on your backs and shoulders. It’s actually the best age to search for the lost love that you saw the first time you met him.
5.           Now we come to the kids, who are basically not much of our priority. They have completely consumed our attention so far. But now is the time to let go and allow them to decide on their own. They are grown up enough to choose what to wear or what to eat. Like the mighty eagle, we have taught them how to fly. Now they know how to be independent. Thus, they don’t need our assistance in petty stuff of their routines. 
6.                     Revive knowledge. We had emptied our minds the day we got married and simply obeyed and followed what the elders told us to. Sadly, our kids find us dumb and ignorant. Ouch! So, start working on that- Read books, search internet, watch news, meet people with right intellect, whatever and update your mental data. Our age should reflect our wisdom.

Hopefully, I’ve covered what needs to revive a woman into a new person and these priorities must focus on our body, soul, heart, surroundings and mind. The simple crux should be that we are precious. Learning to love and respect ourselves can only lead to pure inner happiness. All this might sound selfish, but we have already spent half our lives and major part of our youth on others and never asked anything in return.

But now, it’s our time to live and see the world, experience new things and might dig into those lands where we never thought of visiting in our younger days. Our homes can survive our absence for a while, but our minds and body would be shattered if we don’t break the bonds and live for ourselves at some point in our lives. 

CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGER'S MOM

Let’s begin with a huge round of applause for all those who fall under this category. Handling teenagers is a task that we had not consciously signed up for when we held the bundle of joy for the first time in our arms. Those innocent eyes, tiny features, soft cuddly babies had never warned us even once that after all this diaper changing phase, toddling and crawling phase (rather accident prone phase), school going phase; we would eventually encounter the real truth of the evolution of life.

Yes, the teenage phase when enters the life of our once the most cuddly creature who had never ever done anything before seeking our permission; suddenly all grows up and becomes an altogether different and independent creature. We see all those adolescent changes happening with all those mood swings, tantrums, the struggle to look pretty and forget about all the studies, and sadly last but not the least, the friends seem smarter to them than their own parents who’ve guided through life so far.

No one ever gave us any clue as to how to handle this phase. We are although sure that our parents faced similar adversities when we were young, but have the species evolved so much with the generation leap? With the full blown exposure of social media, internet and television, our kids these days stand wholly exposed to the grave evils than we had ever imagined in our days before we stepped in colleges. The innocence is lost somewhere far on the way.

It’s sad but it’s true that more we try to hide our kids from the worldly exposure of things like drugs, sex, alcohol, violence etc. still they catch up faster.

The problem is not what’s happening with them, but is that although our children have evolved and matured faster as compared to their last generation, but for us, it’s really hard to let go. One part of us believes that they are still our tiny toddlers who need us in every aspect of life. Another part of us just cannot grow up to be evolved as a parent of a teenager rather than the toddler.

If these kids have grown up, then we should too. We need to build trust with them. Instead of being a parent forever, it’s time for us to cool down and settle to be a friend. Believe me, it’s a way harder to be a pal than being a parent. For getting closer to these smart kids, we too have to really work hard to win their trust and share their interests in their free time. During that process, we have to let them take the lead for a while.

Trust is a two way street. If we expect our kids to trust us, we need to have faith in them. We conveniently boast that our upbringing was flawless, then how can we doubt the end result could be full of vices? Our kids are the mirror to our own thoughts. If we cannot trust their decisions then the flaw lies in us and not in them.

A kid belonging to a sound family with strong bond would never stray to the wrong direction. It’s not the world that spoils our child, but is the loop hole in the family that brings the doom to itself.

Treat your child as an adult. Listen to what he has to say and don’t take the liberty to spill your thoughts over it. The time to force your judgment on them was before they turned teens. Now we can only guide and suggest, that too in a humble way. We can do what good friends do… give them options and let them form their opinions themselves.