When Ann Dowsett Johnston attended her son’s graduation from Smith College she felt a “deep pang” that she says sounded like, “I will die and never have done this.” With her son’s encouragement, Johnston applied to Smith and moved into the student dorm with 25-year olds the next year. “I had broken my ankle and was in a wheelchair,” she says. “I was as old as many parents or grandparents. It was a phenomenal experience.” After graduating Johnston, a Canadian, who had been a journalist, then vice-principal of McGill University, launched her career as a psychotherapist at age 67 dealing with women in transition--”to post-retirement, wrestling with substance abuse or career disappointment”. When she found she missed writing, she dug into a topic she knew well: alcohol addiction (she is now 13 years sober). In 2013, she wrote the best-selling book, “Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol.” Today she runs memoir-writing workshops (“Writing Your Recovery”) in which she encourages women to tell their own stories of triumph over grief, substance, or burnout. “We have book proposals in the alumni group before international agents now,...articles in major magazines... pieces submitted to contests,” she says. “My approach to life is that we live in chapters. When friends are retiring, mine is fresh and inspirational. It’s very new. I plan to work until I’m eighty to pay off my student debt!”
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#48: When disruption forces you to reinvent (Bonnie Levison)
#47: Resetting to slow life down (Rachel Lightfoot)
#46: Reinventing through “subconscious surviving” (Tashyra Ayers)
#45: Moving out of stuck (Julien McRoberts)
#44: Reinventing to find your place in the world (Gretchen Rubin)
#43: The simple phrase that reinvented my life (Susan Hyatt)
#42: Finding time, money, freedom, happiness ("Downsizing Ninja" Rita Wilkins)
#41: Reinventing after taking down your boss (Gretchen Carlson)
#40: When the birth of a daughter forces you to reinvent (Mary Beth Ferrante)
#39: Reinventing with a weekend “side hustle" (Gillian Garrett)
#38: Reinventing after tragedy (Laura Dinsmore)
#37: Her dry cleaning bill made her do it (Sarah LaFleur)
#36: Reinventing against the odds (Louise Phillips Forbes)
#35: Reinventing to fill up her empty nest (Jeannie Ralston)
#34: “Fake it till you make it!” Reinventing with moxie! (Barbara Warren)
#33: Reinventing after cancer (Tamika Felder)
#32: Reinventing by teaching fearlessness (Randi Levin)
#31: When life forces you to reinvent - after an abusive relationship (Vani Murthy)
#30: Helping women achieve economic equality (Fran Pastore)
#29: When you decide to reinvent everything at once (Pamela Redmond Satran)
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