Some years ago a good friend of mine shared a portion of a speech by Dr. Rosalind E. Griffin of EMU’s Board of Regents. It was presented at the first annual Girls & Women in Conversation Conference back in March 1998. Hopefully, it will do for you what it did for me as I began preparing to become a "woman of a certain age."

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“If I were to give some kind of lesson for all women to keep in mind, it would be the following: ‘Every woman here will one day turn 40. Whatever age you are not tells whether you are planning at the right pace in order to achieve these following top 40 priorities. By age 40 you should have:

1. A piece of mind and a piece of property.
2. A will.
3. Will power.
4. A savings account in your own name and an IRA in the name of your future security.
5. A mammogram.
6. A manicure, not to mention a pedicure, a facial, and a massage all on the same day.
7. A set of matching luggage.
8. A ticket to some exotic place to unpack it.
9. A great hairdresser, gynecologist, and stock broker.
10. A passionate, very unforgiveable love affair.
11. A little black dress that makes you look five pounds thinner.
12. A sense of humor, style, and purpose.
13. A selfish streak.
14. A spiritual foundation which gets you through a very bad night without going crazy.
15. A facial foundation which gets you through a very long day without getting ashy.
16. A good bra.
17. A good spa.
18. A library card used often.
19. A credit card used sparingly.
20. At least one person in your life who says, “You call, I come.”
21. A good body language (multilingual).
22. A broken heart and the knowledge you can survive it.
23. A cause to fight (domestic violence, infant mortality, save the whales—your choice).
24. A personal relationship with God.
25. A personal trainer.
26. Selective amnesia (what Saturday morning meeting?).
27. Gall.
28. A good skin regimen.
29. The ability to converse on any subject without the benefit of concrete knowledge or access to the facts.
30. A shocking secret.
31. A pair of silk pajamas.
32. A lifetime membership in at least one organization dedicated to uplifting womankind.
33. A phone number of someone who is good with their hands.
34. At least one drop dead, don’t-speak-to-me-because-you-KNOW-you-don’t-know-me gorgeous photo of yourself.
35. A friendship that has stood the test of time.
36. One last chance to tell the guy you were crazy about in your 20s who treated you like cigarette ashes on the floor when you were too dumb to know when he walked out of your life with your heart in his hands, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
37. A soul mate.
38. Faith, hope, and a good fantasy.
39. A dream.
40. A plan to make it come true.’”

Reprint from R. E. Griffin Speech

This is an excellent and playful read on the quality of sensuality personified. Read on to learn more. Enjoy...

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“Sensuality does not wear a watch but she always gets to the essential places on time. She is adventurous and not particularly quiet. She was reprimanded in grade school because she couldn’t sit still all day long. She needs to move. She thinks with her body. Even when she goes to the library to read Emily Dickinson or Emily Bronte, she starts reading out loud and swaying with the words, and before she can figure out what is happening, she is asked to leave. As you might expect, she is a disaster at office jobs.

Sensuality has exquisite skin and she appreciates it in others as well. There are other people whose skin is soft and clear and healthy but something about Sensuality’s skin announces that she is alive. When the sun bursts forth in May, Sensuality likes to take off her shirt and feel the sweet warmth of the sun’s rays brush across her shoulder. This is not intended as a provocative gesture but other people are, as usual, upset. Sensuality does not understand why everyone else is so disturbed by her. As a young girl, she was often scolded for going barefoot.

Sensuality likes to make love at the border where time and space change places. When she is considering a potential lover, she takes him to the ocean and watches. Does he dance with the waves? Does he tell her about the time he slept on the beach when he was seventeen and woke up in the middle of the night to look at the moon? Does he laugh and cry and notice how big the sky is?

It is spring now, and Sensuality is very much in love these days. Her new friend is very sweet. Climbing into bed the first time, he confessed he was a little intimidated about making love with her. Sensuality just laughed and said, ‘But we’ve been making love for days.”

Reprint from J. Ruth Gender

Dear Beautiful Ones:

On behalf of our staff here at StillSoSexy!, we want to extend our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to those effected by Hurricane Sandy. Like many of our readers, we are based out of New Jersey, so we felt its immediate impact and experienced the power outages that left millions of us without electricity, heat, hot water as well as cell phones and internet access. Nevertheless, we are back up and running. And we are confident that the State of New Jersey, along with the rest of the Tri-State and Mid-Atlantic areas, will recover it all. With this said, we ask that you continue to pray for those who suffered a loss--great or small--during this disaster. And should you be so moved, please donate to the relief fund efforts at either www.redcross.org or www.salvationarmyusa.org

Sincerely,

The StillSoSexy! Staff

By Yvonne Wesley RN, PhD FAAN

This week we are pleased to have Dr. Wesley (www.ywesleyconsulting.com) share with us on the issue of loneliness and adult women. Take a moment to read her words of wisdom.

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Scientists have found that loneliness affects one’s health and women report more loneliness than men. Reasons for increased loneliness include, but are not limited to, the loss of a loved one or a shy personality. It has been suggested that some people have pets and/or children to avoid loneliness. However caring for the child or pet may produce more stress than alleviate feelings of being lonely. When feelings of loneliness occur, take time to examine your thoughts and approach additional responsibility with caution. Both stress and loneliness can be detrimental to one's health.

Live a balanced life. Loss is a part of life and time has a way of healing wounds, when cared for properly. For those who are just shy by nature, learn to accept yourself and never lament who you are, for there are many people who are lonely in a crowded room. Studies have even shown that married people report more loneliness than singles.

Feelings of emptiness and social isolation are not welcomed friends, but a person's desire for children and/or pets may or may not be the answer. Take time to reflect on those things that have brought you the most joy in the past and ask yourself whether the cost of relationships is more than you're willing to pay. As my grandmother would say, "Stop and count the cost before you start to build.”

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words. ~George Elliott

I love this description of friendship. And I’m sure most of us can attest to it being a true-ism. After all, just think about your friendships and your childhood BFFs. When we were young, we were really only supposed to have one best friend. Yet, as we grow up and mature, we realize no woman should ever have just one of anything. But seriously, if we are going to be happy, healthy, and whole women; we must learn to keep our friendships going even as we tend to our other relationships and activities. That is, we must maintain great friendships with other women even when our romantic lives, families, and jobs seem all-consuming. How so? Well, here are three things we must do if we are to keep our friendships going:

We must create friendships out of mutual respect for our commonalities and differences. Sure when we’re children, we love having a friendship that allows us to have an identical twin. We want to dress alike, look alike, sound alike, and do everything together. But as adult women, we learn to value our uniqueness. We relish having rare outfits no other woman has in her closet. We get annoyed by friends who are prone to copycat behavior. And we are easily exhausted by moving in girl-packs. So to find balance, we seek out nuanced friendships that are sprinkled with a little bit of commonness and a little bit of differentness.

We must let friendships grow together and apart without them necessarily ending. Adult women know time is precious, so our sense of maturity moves us to be less fickle about whether we talk to or see our BFFs every day. In fact, we treasure those friendships that let us pick up where we left off without the risk of being interrogated or ignored because somehow our loyalty is being questioned. So friendships providing mutual flexibility of thought and time are critical for our time-pressed lives.

We must be present for the good, the bad, and the ugly. No doubt, if we surveyed every woman whose path we crossed in just one day, we’d probably find the majority believe the ideal friendship is there when you need it and even when you don’t. For some, this sense of needing to be present may feel like a contradiction to the previous point. It is not. Adult women know to be present without being seen really means to be available. So when we build friendships anchored in the presentation of availability (i.e., I’m here for you girl...), we feel confident that we are never alone as we navigate through the good, bad, and ugly things we face in life.

The bottom-line is our friendships with other women really do have a way of keep us going. When we put time into them, we are able to nurture and maintain bonds that extend across the changes we face in life. Time-in—whether by a phone call, email, card, or a night on the town—allows us to celebrate each others gains and wipe the tears away when we go through losses. Therefore, by keep our friendships going; we really can be healthy, happy, and whole women.

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dr. terri is an educator, empowerment writer, and entrepreneur,

who provides education planning, writing guidance, and life-mapping services to the sisterhood and those they love.

To learn more about her services, visit www.withdrterri.com. For the online women's center, visit www.stillsosexy.com.