Inspiring books, talks, podcasts about ageing / second half of life as a woman

[oxfordowl]

Looking for recommendations on books, talks, podcasts etc about ageing. I have already read Haggitude and The Middle Passage, and loving Mary Oliver's poetry.

Specifically women-centred. I've one child whom I had later so they are still young, and I'm soon to be 45. Not just feeling my age physically, and in terms of my face and outward "conventional" youthful attractiveness but also that questioning over my place in the world, feeling that I'm letting go of my first adulthood, but not yet excited or confident about my 2nd, but want to be. Redefining myself in second half of life. Want to be the woman I feel I can be. Learning to love myself and feel confident in my skin. Also feeling that due to maternity and Covid I left the world for a bit and came back and everything was different.

I work in a sector which can be very woke and the gender / non-binary stuff has totally engulfed everything too. As a middle aged woman I'm feeling irrelevant and past it within my work world. No one wants our voice.

Has anyone found anything which inspired them?

Sounds like you might like The Shift podcast with Sam Baker.

I found a random one called Middle Aged Madness, just a woman talking about her experiences getting older (think she's in her 40s). It's kind of like having a friend talking to you, rather than offering advice or anything.

Rather than books, what I’ve found the most helpful and inspiring is actually spending time with and getting to know some middle aged and older women at the top of their game - whatever that might be - and learning that it’s possible and how to get there.

Two of the Chairs of my organisation’s regulated Boards are ferociously clever, talented, witty, confident, not afraid at all to challenge or speak their minds, can hold themselves and - at a physical level - have a mean sense of style all their own which they know how to work and didn’t get the memo that only youngsters belong in a gym. I joined the WI and through that I’m friends with women in their 60s, 70s and 80s who definitely have a place in the world, plenty of confidence, and all kinds of amazing stories to tell. At the kink club I’m a member of I meet women 50+ who couldn’t give a stuff what society thinks of their bodies or their lifestyles and are very much about supporting younger women to feel likewise. Get to know and learn from the women you’d like to be!

Observationally, one of the things I think they all have in common is not allowing themselves to be subsumed in or defined by being wives or mothers and losing their sense of self and independence. It’s incredibly refreshing, when a generation ago many women their age would have felt or become invisible behind those aspects of their lives.

No recommendations but this is so interesting to me.
I find it hard to read accounts of women who are doing incredible things in their later years.. yes it's inspiring but it adds to the feeling of inadequacy!