I do not fit the demographic for some of the stuff that I do. For instance, the blog/podcast/video (blogpodvid?) thing. I l♥ve doing it. I love the technology, the editing, adding the images and music.
It's a blast.
It's also the domain of people who are at least 20+ years younger than me.
All of these younger people are out there having the time of their life with all of this stuff. Most of them are just documenting their lives and interests by way of video. I subscribe to some of them (not the stupid ones) and they inspire me on a regular basis.
Which got me to wondering how many older people are doing this. I searched for women my own age doing this sort of thing because I'd also like to be inspired by my peers...
I was so happy to find some. So happy. Better still, they all seem to have their own community where they support each other! Imagine that: supportive community on the Internet!
We older people have so much to offer the world. We have opinions based on real world experience not just what the status quo tells us we should regurgitate. We have character and wisdom. We can share what we know and we can do it with humor or more seriously. We've been married and divorced, had careers, education, mortgages, hobbies, travesties, raised children, suffered losses, reveled in victories. We've been defeated, praised, exhausted, discriminated against, sick, healthy, weird, lost, found, uptight, the opposite of uptight, hated, loved...and on and on it goes.
So why aren't we talking about it all?
Awhile ago a message popped into my head and through the years it keeps getting stronger and stronger and it's now my all-the-time mantra: TELL YOUR STORY.
Please don't tell me that you don't have a story to tell. There are people out there who think your story is far more fascinating than some stupid celebrity-type. I love hearing about people's lives, the minutiae. I would love for you to go for a walk around your town and take pictures of what you see (I am the type who would enjoy coming over to watch your home movies). The view changes constantly and no one ever sees the same things no matter how much you walk the same path.
I've got this thing going on now and after some initial trepidation that I've gotten over I also have come to realize that it doesn't matter one single iota if no other person (besides my husband who encourages every weird thing I do except for when I say I want a dozen dogs) checks out what I do. You do it for you.
Did you hear that?
You do it for you.
You do it for you.
You do it for you.
(P.S. I'm also doing it for my kid so that she doesn't live a life fearful of doing the things she wants to do because some anonymous someone somewhere might think it's weird. Rule #1 for a happy life is not caring what anyone thinks about you.)
I want TELL YOUR STORY to become your mantra, too. Start a blog or a YouTube/Vimeo channel or just go buy a damn notebook and some fun pens if you're not yet comfortable with going public! Go out on picture-taking adventures and load them up to flickr with little paragraphs of where you were or why the place mattered to you.
