Part I Transcript
00:00:00:03 – 00:00:25:21
Litha
Hello, listeners, and welcome to the very first MarigoldBrands.com podcast episode. MarigoldBrands.com is a platform that empowers women 50 plus to thrive by giving them a place to share their experiences and ideas, have conversations, and recommend products. I’m Litha, I’m the founder of Marigold Brands and I’m definitely 50 plus, having just had my 57th birthday a few weeks ago and I live in the Chicagoland area.
00:00:25:23 – 00:00:48:15
Litha
I work in product digital product development, and product management. I have a 20 year old kid, and, I’ve lived in Chicago for the last 30 years or so. Originally from Miami, grew up in California. And today I’m here with two of my dearest and oldest friends, Monique and Becky. And when I say oldest, by the way, I don’t mean age wise.
00:00:48:15 – 00:01:09:06
Litha
I mean that I have known them both for more than half of my life. I’ve invited them to have a conversation with me today about the before and afters of turning 50, because I don’t know about you listeners out there and if you can relate, but I feel like the lead up, the build up to turning 50 was so intense, and after I turned 50, it really kind of fell flat.
00:01:09:08 – 00:01:25:15
Litha
So I’m curious to hear their perspectives, especially now that we’ve lived in our 50s for a bit. So without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to both Monique and Becky to let them introduce themselves. I think we’re going to start with Becky. If you want to, just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. Hi.
00:01:25:17 – 00:01:54:02
Becky
I’m Becky Daly, and, I’ve been living in Los Angeles for the last nine and a half years. We moved here from Chicago. I grew up in Chicago, and that’s where I met Litha in our 20s. I have 2-20 year old boys. They’re twins, and they’re in college. And right now, over the last seven years, I’ve been doing gig work as a dog walker on WAG and for personal clients.
00:01:54:04 – 00:02:19:01
Becky
The last year and a half, I’ve been doing personal assistant work for one of the families. And right now I’m currently taking a little break, and trying to decide what I want to do next. I turned 55 this year, and I’m kind of questioning where I want to be for the next 20 years. So that’s a little bit about myself.
00:02:19:03 – 00:02:22:02
Litha
Thanks, Becky. How about you, Monique?
00:02:22:04 – 00:02:52:22
Monique
Hi, I’m Monique and Litha, we met in our early 20s in San Francisco, so I think it’s a little bit more than half our life. I remember very, very clearly meeting you. Just, very dynamic woman practicing art. And I was so impressed and absolutely had to get to know you. And you were just leaving on a trip to Southeast Asia.
00:02:53:01 – 00:03:16:14
Monique
So we met, and then you came back and I heard all about it. And I was just completely enamored of the dynamic women that you were. And I think that that has definitely carried through in our whole relationship. I’ve seen you through various iterations and I love it. And this is this one is just as exciting, I think.
00:03:16:14 – 00:03:49:05
Monique
I think you still continue to really encourage excellent perspective on life. So I am, just about to turn 56 very soon. And I live in Paris, France. I’ve been living here since, the late 90s, and but I’m originally from Los Angeles, California. And then, San Francisco, where Litha and I met. We were both studying at university there.
00:03:49:07 – 00:04:23:12
Monique
I moved to Paris after my master’s in information science, and, here started working in the field. But then, with my spouse, we traveled for about seven years, and I took up translating French to English because it was very portable. And I’ve continued in that, and I love what I do, French to English translation in the fields of art, architecture, and urbanism.
00:04:23:14 – 00:04:45:09
Monique
I have two adolescent kids, 19 and 16, who continue to teach me a lot about the world. I’m grateful. And okay, that’s me in a nutshell.
00:04:45:11 – 00:05:02:12
Litha
Well, thanks. Thank you so much. And thank you for your, very generous description of me. I appreciate it. I think I invited both of you guys because I also feel the same about you both. You’re very dynamic, very introspective, and I’ve always had very interesting conversations with both of you. And I’ve also learned a lot from both of you.
00:05:02:12 – 00:05:29:20
Litha
So, I think the person I am today is in no short order, partially because of the amazing friendship that you, you know, Monique and Becky have with me. So thank you for that. All right. Well, that being said, I’m going to jump right in. So I’ve been thinking a lot, over the last few years about aging and what it means as a woman, actually, Marigold Brands was an idea I had many many years ago because as I mentioned in the opener, there was just so much pressure around turning 50.
00:05:29:22 – 00:05:57:08
Litha
And I remember, not so much in my early 40s or my mid 40s, being freaked out about it. But I definitely remember the year I turned 50, I retreated into myself and I did not want to talk about it. I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday. I was trapped in my own dark thoughts and, and now that I’m 57, even last year, 56, 55, I remember thinking, what was that all about?
00:05:57:08 – 00:06:18:22
Litha
Why was I so freaked out about turning 50? Because the reality is, I didn’t really feel different the next day. Now, I’m not going to lie, you know, there have definitely been some changes in my health and my visual appearance and even in the perspectives of my life. But, I don’t know, it was just such an intense hurdle, I feel, and milestone in my life.
00:06:18:22 – 00:06:31:24
Litha
So I’m really curious, what was the most surprising thing about turning 50 that you didn’t expect at 40? And if you want to just talk a little bit about what that journey was like for you guys. You want to start Monique?
00:06:32:01 – 00:06:56:00
Monique
I agree with you. I think the transition to it was probably the sort of really scary place because it was so dark. Dark in the sense of where is this heading? It was, not easy to see. And I kept saying to people, oh, yeah, I’m almost 50. I’m almost 50. Thinking, oh, yeah, I’m this is going to be fine.
00:06:56:02 – 00:07:28:15
Monique
And literally the day I turned 50, I was like, no, no, no, I’m this is not the island I want to go to. Take me back. Take me back to the continent. And, it seemed terrifying. And that lasted quite a while because then you really start scrutinizing, scrutinizing your skin, and you’re scrutinizing the way that people are looking at your hair, saying, is that a gray hair on that woman?
00:07:28:17 – 00:07:37:22
Becky
And if things are going to change and that was tricky to navigate. Becky, what do you think?
00:07:37:24 – 00:08:06:15
Becky
I think for me, I really, at 50, as in also previous birthdays, I never really was worried about that chapter or concerned, because I still felt pretty good. I still felt pretty energetic. But for me, turning 55, it was a big crash.
00:08:06:17 – 00:08:08:19
Monique
- Was it for you?
00:08:08:19 – 00:08:24:11
Becky
It was, it was 55. So it was this year, I think was a really big crash on waking up. Kind of in a panic. Oh, my gosh, I’m going to be 75 years old in just 20 years.
00:08:24:13 – 00:08:28:21
Monique
Was it a hot flash panic?
00:08:28:23 – 00:09:02:11
Becky
Sort of. I went I started menopause really early. I started it at 40. And went through it pretty quickly. But so this year, I think also because my mother is aging, she’s going to be 87 and she’s starting to decline in health and in memory. So just kind of helping her day to day and going through her aging, it made me kind of think more about end of life mortality.
00:09:02:12 – 00:09:14:08
Becky
I’m 55. I’ve got ten good years. So I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself and a sense of urgency, like this is all I have left.
00:09:14:23 – 00:09:42:01
Becky
What am I going to do? I have to make these ten years so impactful or no, maybe I can just take a breather. Relax. So it’s yeah that. Yeah. 55 hit me really, really hard. In feeling a sense of end of life. And I think that has a lot to do with, you know, taking care of an aging parent and knowing that that’s going to get a lot more hands on with her.
00:09:42:03 – 00:10:13:05
Monique
Yeah. I think, you know, both of you to have your mother’s and where I always felt that that was my handicap, that I did not have a mother. It’s true that at this phase, I really think that, you know, I of course, I am miss missing out, but in a sense lucky because I am not going through that with an aging mother. That must be really, really hard.
00:10:13:05 – 00:10:27:22
Monique
I can only sympathize. I cannot know what that is like to see one’s mother going through that. So maybe, Becky, you want to talk about how that impacts you?
00:10:28:02 – 00:10:47:24
Litha
As Becky was talking about this, I was thinking, I wondered how it is for you because I definitely see what you’re talking about, Becky. Your mother is your mirror. And so all the things that your parents are going through you, you wonder, is that going to be me? And, you know, my father declined.
00:10:48:01 – 00:11:10:07
Litha
And of course, he’s a male, but, you know, he’s still my DNA. I still share his DNA. My father started, getting really confused and experiencing dementia, in his late 70s, early 80s. And then he ended up taking his own life, because of it. And I just wonder, is that going to be me? You know, and to your point about having another 10 or 15 good years, my mom still in really great shape.
00:11:10:07 – 00:11:37:20
Litha
I mean, she is has so much energy. She’s so active. I want to be like that. But there’s a part of it that’s my dad that I think about all the time where I’m wonder is that going to be me? Am I going to have to worry about, you know, not not being able to perform cognitively or, you know, my physiology, which, you know, I feel that my brain’s still pretty sharp, but I can tell you, I definitely, even this morning, I woke up and I was like, oh man, my hip is killing me, you know?
00:11:37:20 – 00:11:55:04
Litha
And after I got moving around a bit, I felt better but it sucks. waking up with pain or experiencing pain has been a big mental drain on me, and it’s definitely limiting me to some degrees in terms of how active I am. So, so yeah, I, I agree with you Becky on that.
00:11:55:04 – 00:12:10:20
Litha
You know, it’s kind of scary and then also, isn’t it scary to think that you’re just not going to have your parents around at all. That’s not a great thought. And Monique, I mean, you have that experience. I look to you sometimes and I think, well, she’s living through it and she’s fine.
00:12:10:22 – 00:12:35:10
Litha
Maybe it’s not as bad as I think it’s going to be. We’re in our 50s and most people are dealing with parents that are passing or aging. What about societal expectations? When I was in my early 50s, I think I got tired of dyeing my hair and I was like, screw it, I’m just going to go gray and I’m just going to embrace it.
00:12:35:10 – 00:12:51:15
Litha
I don’t care if I get fired, if people don’t want to talk to me. These were the things that I was thinking because I was going to go gray, that the whole world was going to, shun me.
00:12:51:15 – 00:13:07:09
Litha
I stopped coloring my hair. And actually, I kind of love it. I love the freedom of just having gray hair, and I actually like the way it looks. But I think there’s a lot of pressure, right? I hear people all the time saying, ‘you don’t look as young as you used to’.
00:13:07:11 – 00:13:08:08
Litha
Oh my gosh,
00:13:08:08 – 00:13:30:19
Litha
I don’t want to name any names but even family members saying, ‘you’ve got a few more wrinkles’. What kinds of pressures did you guys sense or feel or do you still feel through that transition and to where you’re at right now?
00:13:30:21 – 00:13:58:03
Monique
I never dyed my hair. And because I just thought, I really need to get used to this. The time that it takes. So I’ll see it coming in and it won’t bother me so much. Societal pressures have always seemed like something to me that happened to others. I don’t know.
00:13:58:05 – 00:14:42:12
Monique
Those kinds of things don’t necessarily resonate with me in the same way. But I have noticed, maybe because I look for it more, I don’t know, it’s hard to know if that’s true, but I have noticed women who are younger than me, behave towards me in ways that surprise me. In the yoga class or in other fitness class or when I’m walking up to somebody, a hostess at a restaurant or a shop, or things like that, there will be some women who are younger than me who look at me like they do not want to catch what this older woman has.
00:14:42:12 – 00:15:04:11
Monique
It is like they are saying ‘go away from me,lady’. And then there’ll be other younger women, who you can see the reverence in their eyes that are just like, ‘ooh, I hope I have your energy and your skin when I hit your age, whatever your age is, you’re older. But I hope that that happens to me’.
00:15:04:13 – 00:15:27:19
Monique
And then I think women in their 40s who don’t see women who are like me, you know. There’s no real issue about age.
00:15:27:19 – 00:15:55:22
Monique
However, older women, I’m a little bit more timid about asking them about their experiences. Not having a mother and most of my aunties have passed away, I don’t know. I have friends who are older, in their 60s or 70s. But they seem like a little bit of a different generation. I’m a little bit intimidated to ask them something so intimate.
00:15:55:22 – 00:16:17:04
Monique
Like what was your personal experience? How did you live it? And times have changed so much that I wonder if their answers will be relevant? So unless they sort of bring it up with me, I don’t necessarily get too many opportunities to ask them questions.
00:16:17:06 – 00:16:34:14
Litha
I’m going to ask you about this in a second, Becky but I just wanted to interject a minute. One of the original reasons why I thought about Marigold Brands was because there’s a woman at my gym who’s got to be in her 70s, and she is ripped. I mean, there is nobody in the gym with muscles like hers,
00:16:34:17 – 00:16:52:18
Litha
definitely no women. I think she has kyphosis, so she’s got a curvature in the spine. But, man, she is in there every day. And I want to khow does she do that? You know? I wanted to talk to her. I actually approached her one day and said I was so impressed with your regime
00:16:52:18 – 00:17:01:08
Litha
and I want to learn about it because I wanted to know if this is this something I can do. She said she was not interested in talking to you about it. I was crushed-
00:17:01:10 – 00:17:02:15
Litha
damn it, why not?
00:17:02:19 – 00:17:22:10
Litha
I still see her. I’m still trying earn her to trust so we can talk about her perspective in life and what she does. Talking to older women in a way for me is looking for role models. I want to know
00:17:22:14 – 00:17:27:06
Litha
what are my options?
00:17:27:06 – 00:17:52:22
Monique
Yeah, I’d be I’d be curious to ask her, why she won’t talk to me. Is it because she’s busy?
00:17:52:24 – 00:18:13:02
Monique
Is it because she thinks I was trying to insult her or compliment her?. Or is she thinking that she’s not that much older
00:18:13:04 – 00:18:38:22
Monique
so how should I be taking the comment you made? Maybe ask differently. That’s why I think it’s so hard to ask women who are older because, each of us, maybe we’re kind of attached to still not necessarily feeling so great about this whole
00:18:38:24 – 00:18:48:04
Monique
point of no return aging process. Like it or not.
00:18:48:06 – 00:18:48:24
Becky
And I think
00:18:49:02 – 00:18:50:08
Becky
that
00:18:50:10 – 00:19:00:23
Becky
we’re all kind of looking for a little bit of a playbook. I mean, there’s so much information and so much lack of information.
00:19:01:00 – 00:19:03:19
Monique
Let’s talk about the lack of information.
00:19:03:21 – 00:19:29:21
Becky
Yeah and gatekeeping. A lot of people want to gatekeeping information, although my experience, I guess societal views, I feel the same as you do, Monique. I don’t really feel that aware of it or bending to it. It just kind of was not something that really affected me.
00:19:29:21 – 00:20:04:01
Becky
But personally, you know, more personal pressure that I put on myself and that’s you know what with social media and Instagram Reels focus on youth and beauty. So of course, as we’re losing estrogen, losing those things, you’re kind of personally putting more pressure on yourself.
00:20:04:03 – 00:20:31:24
Becky
The people here in LA, people that I’ve talked to, have been really kind, telling me I look so good. Or if I ask somebody, that looks good what are they doing, they’ll respond ‘collagen peptides for the skin’ as an example. But yeah, it would, it’d be great to have some sort of playbook of. I guess that’s what Marigold Brands is about, Litha, what you’re working to accomplish.
00:20:32:01 – 00:21:04:16
Litha
How do we get more information? Yeah. This age of transition, perimenopause, post menopause. And how to help ourselves. I was thinking the other day that it’d be interesting to have personas. I’m aging and I want to go totally natural, or I’m aging and I want to still look like I’m 20, or I’m aging and want to be like a mad dog at work and have like a playbook for each one of those. That would be amazing.
00:21:04:16 – 00:21:31:02
Litha
I don’t think life is that clear cut though, but I mean, definitely with Marigold, that is a big impetus for me. I just want to see what my options are. What are people doing? And give me some options that I can choose from because I’m not really interested in trying to look like I’m 20 or 30. I don’t want to erase my forehead wrinkles or my crow’s feet, or the lines inbetween my eyebrows or my gray hair.
00:21:31:04 – 00:21:51:13
Litha
I want to embrace it, but I also want to still feel vital. For me, I think the societal pressure has been, well first of all, I 100% believe that who you see yourself as is a reflection of the people you surround yourself with and the culture you live in,
00:21:51:15 – 00:22:09:00
Litha
and so I guess for me, I was, am thinking that my culture doesn’t reflect an aging person very well. So it is hard for me to imagine what that looks like for me. It felt, feels, really risky. If I go gray, I’m going to embrace it but is I going to have a negative impact?
00:22:09:00 – 00:22:30:21
Litha
Am I not going to be able to find work? And if I don’t, I’m not going to be able to build my retirement account. And then what’s going to happen to me? So it’s thinking about how taking this risk of embracing aging could negatively impact my life. And especially, as I must mentioned, seeing my dad, you know, he was like a smart guy and
00:22:31:01 – 00:22:50:20
Litha
he had a great life until he started mentally declining. I don’t think he planned for that. And that means that he didn’t really have any money. He had just enough money to not qualify for any sort of really good benefits like housing but he didn’t actually have enough money for good housing.
00:22:50:22 – 00:23:07:11
Litha
And so seeing him in that middle part has really affected me. Is is embracing my aging going to be a risk that’s going to lead me down the route to where my dad ended? I don’t know.
00:23:07:11 – 00:23:15:12
Litha
I guess that’s part of the societal expectations. Monique, in Europe, I think it’s also really different than it is in the US. Don’t you think?
00:23:15:12 – 00:23:16:21
Litha
Like if you
00:23:16:21 – 00:23:25:03
Litha
live in LA, you live in the capital of ‘looking good’. I mean everybody is always trying to look amazing, right?
00:23:25:05 – 00:23:51:20
Monique
And like LA being the capital of being young also. I mean I remember growing up and just being like 19, I better get out of here because I’m going to be old next year. But so, so there’s this interesting, when you were talking about having playbooks, each of you were talking about that. I was thinking, there isn’t that much information out there, it seems.
00:23:51:20 – 00:24:48:01
Monique
And it’s hard to know what to trust. For information and even gynecologists, male or female, do not have that much. There’s not a lot of studies out there, unfortunately. Hopefully with our generation there will be more. But I was thinking, a very good friend of mine, in San Francisco, her son has sister fibrosis, and she had told me years ago that, person who had cystic fibrosis became a medical professional and created this database so that throughout the country all, the of the medical practitioners who had patients who were seeing patients who had cystic fibrosis, fibrosis, were entering data that into this nationwide database so that
00:24:48:03 – 00:25:53:15
Monique
other medical practitioners could start gathering really specific details about how to help and what their various, practices would be and what kind of medical treatment that they were giving and how people are relating to treatment. And I thought, wouldn’t that be fantastic if we had a database that was world wide about how women were getting perimenopause, what their symptoms were, what treatment was being offered, and just, again, just data gathering because eventually with AI, then we would have something that could be analyzed and help.
00:25:53:15 – 00:26:23:17
Monique
Add your own ten criteria, I am this age, this background, etc, and cross data with others to see your options. I think that we would have a wonderful tool to help women. In France there is social health care, which is absolutely amazing and incredible, and I’m happy to pay my taxes to have all of this coverage.
00:26:23:19 – 00:27:12:06
Monique
Wouldn’t it be great if it could also focus on menopause and be tax payer funded? Because all these women who are working, they could use it and get health support with the highest predicted outcomes.
00:27:12:06 – 00:27:35:05
Monique
We all need physical and mental and emotional support, which we hopefully will get from our friends and loved ones. But it’d be nice if in the, medical profession, there was some acknowledgment about what it is that that we’re going through. All women are going to be going through it at different levels variously.
00:27:35:07 – 00:27:54:11
Litha
So that’s interesting. And, I, wanted to mention that there are so many, like, menopausal symptoms that I’ve experienced that you don’t really hear about. Where is all the soft tissue research, you know?
00:27:55:12 – 00:28:16:14
Becky
I just want to add to what Monique said too, that with my gynecologist, when I started symptoms of perimenopause, she basically said, let’s do a blood test to make sure that there’s nothing going on with your thyroid. And she said, okay, you’re in perimenopause. And then said, okay, if it gets really unbearable, come back to me and I’ll give you some drugs.
00:28:16:15 – 00:28:42:24
Becky
I just feel like I was basically left on a deserted island alone to try to navigate this. And it went on for ten years with no support. So I really like what you’re talking about because I had no information, I had no support. And this was 15 years ago when this started and no one was really talking about it then. Women weren’t talking about it and sharing.
00:28:42:25 – 00:28:53:04
Litha
Let’s pick this back up, when we come back after a break, because I think this is a really good topic to drill into. Thank you, guys, listeners, for listening. We’ll be right back.
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