Many people would have just given up after experiencing the tragedy with your husband, but you went full force ahead — regardless of what friends said! Sometimes we have to pay attention to that voice inside us and let it guide us.

In reading your comment it’s also apparent reinvention is invigorating. Sounds like you have a new-found zest for life.

Thanks for writing!
Lisa

My friends thought I was crazy. Yet, I had to try it. What a great decision I made! Not only am I learning skills to help others, but I’m also gaining a totally new perspective of what it means to be a twenty-something-year-old student trying to navigate in a world that is totally different from the one in which I lived when I was that age. I’ve found my fellow students to be totally accepting of me, and I have learned so much from them that I can use in the “real” world–their language is a constant source of entertainment; their opinions are enlightening and spot-on in most cases; their enthusiasm for life is contagious; and their can-do attitude bouys me up when I feel old and tired. In short, they make me feel alive.

Those adults who say that the younger generation is doomed simply have not talked with–or listened to–them. They are simply delightful, and I find a renewed optimism in knowing that this generation will one day be running the country—-and probably the nursing home in which I will be living!

Cherie Renfrow-Starry
Therapist, Mental Health Counselor
Edmonds, WA

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