We Are Not Window Dressing
We were raised to be silent and supportive. But this is our chapter — the one where we claim our own damn voice.
Who Were Our “Influencers”?
For me, it wasn’t wise elders asking about my dreams. Hell no. It was the women on TV. Beaver’s mom. Lassie’s mom (June Lockhart). The glamorous wife on Green Acres. And of course, I Dream of Jeannie — I desperately wanted to be a genie!
The lessons were clear, if confusing:
Be tender.
Make sure everything “turns out nice” (and wear your damn pearls while scrubbing the sink).
Play dumb if it keeps the peace.
Ask questions, but only if they’re cute.
And for God’s sake, treat your hair like it’s your crown jewels.
See the pattern? Not one of those women — real or fictional — dared to chase her own discoveries. Not one was shown dreaming for herself. And no one ever asked me about mine. Not once.
I was raised to be window dressing in a man’s life. That was my worth. That was the script.
But here’s the truth: my soul flat-out refused to swallow that lie. Thank goodness. Had I not clung to even the most tenuous relationship with my own inner self, I wouldn’t be where I am now — a woman of independent means, making art and writing daily missives (my personal passion).
It took plenty of trial and error to arrive here, but it doesn’t have to be that way for you. If you’re willing to commit to yourself and grab my Refoundation Guide, you’ll have a firm, loving framework for rediscovering who you are, reclaiming the dreams you tucked away, and finally knowing yourself at a deeper level.
Now, at 70, I can see it so clearly: our mothers and grandmothers didn’t have what we do. They didn’t have the choices, or the longevity, or the wide-open decades still stretching ahead at 60, 65, 70+. We do. And yet so many of us feel “invisible.” Not because we’re gone — but because we haven’t yet claimed this chapter as our own.
Well, damn it, ladies — this is our time. We are not invisible. We are not done. We are the first generation with the freedom and the years to create something wildly new.
So let’s claim it. Shake off the old scripts. Dig up those dusty dreams. And write a story that belongs only to us. This is not the season to shrink. This is the season to unfurl. To ask. To explore. To dare. Because we have so much living left to do — and it is ours for the taking.
And here’s the thing: you don’t have to do it alone. Inside my Substack community, we connect daily — through Voxer chats, Sunday night Zoom circles, and a private group conversation where we get real about what we want now. Together, we remind each other that it’s never too late to start, to shift, to claim a life that excites us.
Come join us. Together, we’ll stop being window dressing and start being the main event. Because this chapter? It belongs to us.