Falling In Love at 49

January 8, 2017September 3, 2023 / Laura Lee Carter / 10 Comments

To celebrate the 12th anniversary of the day Mike and I met, I decided to run this popular post from my now defuncted “Midlife Crisis Queen” blog. This is one of the first posts I wrote after starting a blog in 2007:

“Love is lovelier, the second time around. Just as wonderful, with both feet on the ground…” — Sammy Cahn

And so it is. Falling in love later can be quite the challenge, but when it does happen, it feels just like a miracle. To me it felt like winning the lottery, and in a way it was! When I think back to all the reasons why Mike and I should not have met, it boggles my mind that we did. Although we only lived ten miles apart, without the Internet we most certainly wouldn’t have met.

Our backgrounds were very different, and we shared no social networks. I was also getting plenty gun shy from meeting new men online. The men kept vaporizing after our first date.Yes, I was beginning to feel mighty hopeless.

Then there was the fact that we didn’t really match up on paper. I came from a background with an emphasis on academics, and Mike went to the Navy instead of college. His specialty is mechanics and electronics, mine is counseling, research and writing, but what we had in common turned out to be much more important!

Mike and I felt an immediate camaraderie of spirit, which I have never found in another human being, a feeling we had both been seeking forever, but had somehow missed until that day.

From the very beginning our souls spoke to each other in a unique and unusual way, a spontaneous familiarity, a synchronicity of body, mind and heart. And even more amazing, we both realized and appreciated that fact immediately. No backing away from it, no denying it. We both decided to trust our inner wisdom and simply go with it.

We spoke for ten hours on our first date, and then took a short trip together less than two weeks later. Reminds me of that great line at the end of one of my favorite romantic comedies:

“When you finally meet the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible!” – ‘When Harry Met Sally.’

We both had been through so much, and so we recognized immediately when something unique and wonderful fell into our laps. I also learned about a key component of compatibility that I had never thought about before. Besides the usual requirements, the deal breakers, etc., I learned how important it is that your partner process information at the same rate. Mike and I think at the same rate, and often come to the same conclusions simultaneously. This is quite a gift in a long term relationship!

My own theory of love and attraction came through loud and clear when I first met Mike, that is you get what you are in love. As much as you have worked on developing into your best self, that is the kind of person you will attract to yourself.

So keep working on self-love and self-respect, feel daily gratitude for the life you now have, and read good blogs and books. Why not try mine? How to believe in love again.

Never give up on love if that’s what you want!

My favorite poet Marge Piercy said it best:

“Love is plunging into darkness toward a place that may exist.”

Want to know more about finding love later in life? Check out my book: How to Believe In Love Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom.

Please feel free to contact me directly to discuss any of these challenges, and to order your own signed copies of any of my books! Cheers, Laura Lee (email: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)

Air Pollution, Dementia and City Life

January 7, 2017January 7, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

More than 50 million people around the world live with dementia, but the causes of this disease that robs us of our memories and brain power, are not well understood. We received some bad news on this topic this week. As many as 11% of dementia cases in people living within 50 meters of a major road could be caused by pollution and/or traffic noise, a new study suggests. The researchers, who followed nearly 2 million people in Canada over eleven years, say air pollution or noisy traffic could be contributing to the brain’s decline.

This study, published in the Lancet, followed nearly two million people in the Canadian province of Ontario, between 2001 and 2012. There were 243,611 cases of dementia diagnosed during that time, but the risk was greatest in those living closest to major roads.

Compared with those living more than 300 meters away from a major road, the risk was 7% higher within 50 meters, 4% higher between 50-100 meters and 2% higher for those within 200 meters. Researchers adjusted their data to account for other risk factors like poverty, obesity, education levels and smoking so these are unlikely to explain the link.

Pollution particles ‘get into brain’

Dr Hong Chen, from Public Health Ontario, one of the report authors, said:

“Increasing population growth and urbanization have placed many people close to heavy traffic, and with widespread exposure to traffic and growing rates of dementia, even a modest effect from near-road exposure could pose a large public health burden…More research to understand this link is needed, particularly into the effects of different aspects of traffic, such as air pollutants and noise.”

Add to this the fact that dementia is quickly becoming the leading cause of death, and it becomes harder to deny that living in polluted cities is killing us.

Many studies have focused on the impact of dirty air on the lungs and heart. In early 2016 the World Health Organisation warned that air pollution was leading to as many as three million premature deaths every year. Now, tiny particles of pollution have been discovered inside samples of brain tissue, providing the first evidence that minute particles of what is called magnetite from air pollution, find their way into our brains.

My initial response to this new research is dah! When I first heard about my own serious case of COPD last month, I said to the doctor, “Yes, I’ve had bronchitis in some of the most interesting places.” (Bangkok, Taipei, China, Venice…)

Asia is particularly dirty and I have spent far too much time living there. And Europe isn’t much better, but realistically, most of us breathe polluted air all of the time and somehow believe it isn’t affecting our health. Surprise! It all catches up with you sooner or later.

For decades I have had a personal appreciation of the American Lung Association’s tag line: “When you can’t breathe, nothing else matters…”

The human race always moves towards FREEDOM

January 4, 2017March 15, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / 6 Comments

I saw an interesting exchange of ideas on Meet the Press this past Sunday. One speaker I found most outstanding was Isabel Wilkerson, the author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”

What a wise, informative, and well-spoken woman! I found this discussion interesting on a lot of different levels, but I could personally relate to it in terms of our own recent ‘migration’ out of the city…

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“You can’t separate peace from freedom, because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” – Malcom X

Yes, our move was mainly based on the idea of increasing our own freedom from densely populated cities, and all of the restrictions included in that lifestyle. Life can be GREAT in rural America!

At the beginning of the show, Ms. Wilkerson stated that, “Any migration is about freedom.” She spoke of the desperation so many blacks in the south felt to escape, and yet in some cases they were treated like criminals just for wanting to move north.

Another part of the conversation I enjoyed was with the author of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis, J. D. Vance. He spoke of the part of the American dream which so often includes a desire for upward mobility. And yet moving to somewhere that is economically different requires that you socialize with others who are not like you. His example was when he attended Yale after growing up in the rural south.

At first I related to Mr. Vance’s experience in terms of my own life. I went from a public high school and a middle-class upbringing to attend an exclusive college with the sons and daughters of America’s millionaires in the early 1970s. What did I have in common with these children of privilege?

Then I began to think about our recent move to an old, relatively poor, mostly Latino town in southern Colorado after living in expensive, predominantly European-American suburbs for most of my life.

Some say the best way for those of us who live in the United States to advance past our many prejudices is to spend time with those whose lives are quite different. Moving here has been a step in that direction for me.

Living in a small, poor town has helped me make the small step past diversity towards commonality. At first I found this experience quite alienating. As the obvious outsider, I could not predict how others would respond to me. Those who look like me are mostly tourists in Walsenburg. They come, they hopefully spend some money, and they leave. But slowly, as I got to know more local residents personally, it became clear that we all want the same things for ourselves and our families. None of us is really so different than the other.

Are any of us really so different? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness summarize well the goals of every human being in this world I think.

Learn more about my move to rural Colorado…

You cannot control how others receive your energy

December 27, 2016January 2, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / 7 Comments

Perhaps I will always remember this holiday as the one where I finally accepted the truth about other peoples’ reaction to me. Ah, if I could have totally accepted this truth decades ago, my life would have been so much easier:

You cannot control how other people receive your energy. Anything you do or say gets filtered through the lens of whatever they are going through at that moment, which is NOT ABOUT YOU.

Just keep doing your thing with as much integrity and love as possible.

This includes everything I write about here and in my books. Just because I have chosen to learn enough to understand the psychology of midlife transition or passive solar technology, and appreciate the freedom this knowledge has given to me, does not mean anyone else has a clue what I’m talking about.

Even my parents, who taught me much of what I learned as a child, the ones I thought knew EVERYTHING when I was young, have no idea where I’m coming from with most of my ideas and thoughts today. They are living in their own reality and often do not appreciate mine, but that is not about me.

On some level I’m ashamed that it has taken me this long on this beautiful blue planet to appreciate this truth. But on the other hand, it is so freeing to let each of us be where we are right now.

We continue to search for whatever makes our lives feel better.

Family History Comes Full Circle

December 17, 2016December 17, 2016 / Laura Lee Carter / 6 Comments

Deep in the silence of a Colorado foothills snow storm, I see how the generations of my family are now coming full circle. Soon after Mike and I moved down here, in the foothills halfway between Walsenburg and La Veta Colorado, my father told me his father’s retirement dream was to move to the tiny town of La Veta to set up his own barber shop.

This is a man who had always cut hair in Turner, Kansas, outside of Kansas City, Kansas. Grandpa Carter occasionally drove out to Alamosa in the San Luis Valley to visit relatives. Along the way he found La Veta and loved it. Unfortunately my grandpa died just weeks after his retirement from the railroad in 1968.

I guess it is now safe to say my husband Mike had to do some fast talking to convince me to move down here from busy, expensive Fort Collins, Colorado in 2014. He loved the area, especially for the reasonably-priced lots with their own water district, pinon-juniper woodlands and great solar exposure. I love it now too.

This year my estranged brother John, who lives his own version of a Thoreau-like existence outside of Sedona, Arizona, decided to come up to visit us a few times after no word from him in years. In fact, we weren’t even sure he was still alive a few years back. He lives on the land, and a kind forest ranger finally convinced him to contact us. We have all now renewed our relationships with John.

John has not attended our family Christmases in decades, but he is making a point of it this year. My parents are in their eighties and now live in Denver. We will be taking him up there soon.

I feel somehow certain that John would not have come up to visit us if we were still in Fort Collins. He loves the natural setting of our new home. He sits out on the ‘veranda’ every chance he gets, watches nature and plays his guitar, enjoying the lovely silence.

What are the chances that we would all wind up in this lovely place, so close to the town where my Grandpa Carter wanted to wind up? So many synchronicities or “meaningful coincidences” can only be seen in retrospect.

City life, rural life, stress & heart health

December 14, 2016July 1, 2017 / Laura Lee Carter / 4 Comments

I find the gradual transition I have been through in the past few years, from city life, to small town and rural living, fascinating. I did not know until I researched it, that the entire world is moving from rural to urban quickly.

According to a 2011 report from LSE Cities and the Deutsche Bank called Urban Stress and Mental Health:

“Urban living is on the rise whereas rural living is becoming the exception – in all parts of the world and at an ever-increasing rate. The rapid pace of urbanization is an important marker of the societal transition at large that has occurred over the past 30 years. Our world is shifting towards an urban, small-family or single household, and at the same time, an aging society. In the next 30 years we will be faced with the growing challenges specific to our cities’ aged single urban populations.

However, urban living is not only about getting older, it is also about being in a constant state of stress. Stress is the unspecific physiological and psychological reaction to perceived threats to our physical, psychological or social integrity. Urban living can be threatening if you haven’t enough space of your own, if you experience insufficient security or live under unstable economic conditions. Stress increases with the anticipation of adverse situations and the fear of not having the adequate resources to respond to them. From an evolutionary point of view, stress is the mechanism that prepares us for any ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction, and also causes us to evolve in order to better adapt to our environment. Although not harmful per se, stress may jeopardize our health when stress exposure is chronic or when complete recovery is not possible.”

In our first year of living in a town of under 3,000, my stress level fell precipitously. It felt amazing at times. With only two stoplights in the whole county(!) and almost no traffic, I found nobody in Walsenburg CO to be in a rush, unless of course they were tourists. There were never parking problems or lines anywhere. But since my natural stress level was geared to noise, traffic, aggressive behavior and threats from strangers everywhere, it took me a while to adjust. I had to tell myself to mellow out constantly.

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In our second year here we moved out to the country on a few acres and began living in a quiet, clean, peaceful, naturally beautiful setting, but my body was still geared to a higher level of alertness and anxiety than my surroundings warranted. It took time to relax by practicing meditation, yoga, and simply sitting quietly more.

I needed to learn again that my emotions were tied to my heart. When my world felt like a threatening place, even unconsciously, I was daily putting my heart at risk. Health practitioners worldwide now see stress as a major risk to cardiovascular health. Cortisol and epinephrine are two hormones that, along with others, raise blood pressure and blood sugars in the body, threatening the heart. Another reason stressed-out people are vulnerable to heart disease is that they rarely eat well, sleep well, and exercise.

In short, I cannot believe how much my life has changed since leaving city life behind. I did not know the level of stress I was living with everyday until it was gone. And even then it took me quite a while to truly relax and enjoy the lack of stress in my life.

Learn more about this major life transition by reading my memoir…