" Girls of 68" This is for you.

So, I want to say I am the first to appreciate a proud husband that has been in love with his wife and happily married for 39 years. Life doesn't get any better. But, for those of us who have been (in these last 15 years) to the raw edge of menopause and back and have returned with our "true voices" intact, this post is for you. Please don't back out of this reunion because you think you should look a certain way or still be "18." One of the reasons I am coming to this 40th is because I have been taking care of an 88 year old mother that is coming to the end of a long battle with her health and who has lived her life for what "others" wanted her to be or do. It makes you re-evaluate what it means to be female. If anyone got to see the musical "Menopause" you know life isn't about staying the same. It is about looking changes in the face and learning to go with them. So, "girls of 68" I am gray, battling weight, divorced and still pretty happy with the way my life has turned out. I've raised a dynamic daughter, live in a comfortable house that I paid for myself, and have worked in a career I love for the past 26 years. Not typical, I guess, but real life. I am "coming home" to honor my New England roots & to say thank you to some great people (male and female) that helped me on the road to where I am today. So I want to hear what the "women of 68" have been doing in the past 40 years-married or not, gray or still paying for "natural color," thin or thick. Like Sugarland/Bon Jovi says in the song, " there are a million miles of memories on that road. Who says you can't go home-there's only one place they call me one of their own." I for one am looking forward to seeing everyone. I may have to put on my progressives to do that, but I will be there with an open heart. See you in June. Sally (Hornkohl) Bell: Way Out West