You Are Allowed to Start Over

There is a sentence you say when the subject of your own life comes up, and you have said it so long that you no longer hear it as a sentence. It starts with when, or once, or after. When the children are older. Once the project is handed over. After the verdict. When my mother no longer needs me.  You did not refuse anything. You rescheduled. And a rescheduled no is still a no, and it is the more durable kind, because a no can be argued with and a when cannot. There is nothing to push against. You are not being prevented. You are on hold, and hold is the only state that has no end.  You Are Allowed to Start Over starts from a claim the category avoids. The obstacle is not fear, money, age, or courage. It is a condition you wrote yourself, and you wrote it so it could never be met. That is why "e;it's never too late"e; has never once helped. It is an answer to a question you were not asking. You do not believe it is too late. You believe you have not finished being needed yet.  Through six women in six countries, Roksana in Krakow, Thandiwe in Cape Town, Yasemin in Berlin, Ji-won in Busan, Ximena in Valparaiso and Bernadette in St. John's, the book builds ten tools, each used exactly once. Inside, you will learn:  The Unsaid No. Write down, word for word, the sentence you say when the subject of your own life comes up. It will contain when, once, or after. Circle the condition, then answer one question in writing. Did anybody ever actually refuse you, or did you reschedule?  The Backlog. Everything you said later to, with the year you first said it. A list you cannot clear is not evidence of failure. It is the most reliable map of what you want, because nobody keeps a promise to herself for fourteen years over nothing.  The Closing Window. The test for telling a condition that is not yours to remove from one you wrote. Some windows really do shut, and this chapter will not pretend otherwise.  The Old Loyalty. You are not afraid and you are not stuck. You are loyal, to a version of you that no longer lives there.  The Grief Before. What you will miss, in plain and unflattering detail, including the parts you are ashamed to miss. It has to be done before you go, not after.  The Acceptable Reason. You have not been waiting for permission. You have been waiting for a justification a third party would accept, so you would not have to be the woman who left a good life for no visible reason. It does not exist.  The One Afternoon. The first move, sized to fit in a single afternoon, requiring no money, nobody's agreement, and no announcement.  The Magazine Version. The restart you have been imagining is a set of photographs. What you actually want is one specific thing inside them, and it is usually available now.  The New Terms. Sometimes the answer is a move and sometimes it is a rewrite, and this book refuses to prefer either one.  The Deadline. Take the when, take the condition, and put a number on it. A reason can be argued down. A date cannot, because a date does not care what you think of it.  Chapter 5 is the one this book had to be honest about. Yasemin has interpreted the same trial for three years and her condition is when the verdict comes. The verdict comes in. She still does not move, and the chapter sits with that instead of explaining it away.  Appendix C is for the reader whose condition is not hers to remove. A child who is eight. A mother in the middle of treatment. A body that has stopped cooperating. Money that is not there. Appendix B is a ninety-day countdown to a date you set on day one.  This book never tells you to leave anyone. It gives you a written sentence, an honest test of your own constraint, and a date. For readers of Designing Your Life, Transitions, and the midlife-reinvention shelf.  ---