Life's Funny...Until It's Not™ - The Version of You That No Longer Fits

What happens when the version of yourself you've been living no longer fits? Not the job. Not the house. You.

In this episode of Life's Funny…Until It's Not™, host Deb LaMotta explores what it means to shed the identity you've been wearing for decades, the one that took care of everyone else, kept things running, and showed up for everybody but yourself. It's not a switch you flip. It's a daily choice. Sometimes an hourly one.

Deb shares her honest reaction to Meredith Maran's memoir The New Old Me: My Late-Life Reinvention, a book about finding yourself in your sixties after loss, after a long marriage ends, after the life you thought you were living turns out to be a version of a life, not the whole thing. The parallels to her own first year of retirement hit close to home.

In Food for Thought, Deb tells the story of Barbara, a woman who spent thirty years in Florida carrying a childhood dream of living in Europe. At 62, during COVID, she had a now-or-never moment. Eight months later, she was on a plane to Portugal, alone, with no contacts, no language, and no map. She chose a small fishing village in the Algarve called Santa Luzia and started over. Four years later, she's still there.

In What I'm Learning, Deb gets real about exhaustion, the kind that comes from decades of reinvention, loss, and always being the one who keeps going. And what it looks like to give yourself permission to rest, even for a moment, before turning the next page.

This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like a nomad in their own life. Anyone who has kept a pair of jeans that no longer fit because maybe, someday, they will again. Anyone who suspects there's a version of themselves they've been holding back — and wonders if it's too late to go find her.

It isn't.

Life's Funny…Until It's Not™ is part of the R2RB Network, Where Independent Voices Build Legacy. Find Deb on Facebook and Instagram at R2RBroadcasting.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi and welcome. I'm Deb La Mata, your host of Life's Funny Until It's Not, the podcast for those of us navigating the second half of life with honesty, a little humor, and zero apologies. Let me ask you a question. Do you ever feel like you are always showing up as someone else? That you put your true self on the back burner, that the true person you really are is just waiting at the door to be let in? Finally? Sounds a little mysterious? Not really, so let me explain and this all will make sense. I'll share something personal as well. I'm always talking about reinventing myself, being able to roll with whatever comes my way. But mainly I was referring to work and living situations, not personal situations that would change everything people thought they knew about you. While researching for this episode, I came across a book by Meredith Moran that I'll be talking about. The book is titled The New Old Me: My Late Life Reinvention. I wouldn't realize how much of the book related to my life until I started reading. Moran writes about reinvention, about finding herself in her 60s after a long marriage ends, after losses pile up, after the life she thought she was living turns out to be a version of a life, not the whole thing. She moved to Los Angeles, she starts over, she's funny about it, and she's brutally honest. And there were moments reading this where I had to pause and think about what I had just read. For me, the reinvention piece was the first thing that hit home. Here I am at 67, starting a new podcast, building something from scratch, my life looking completely different from what it did just over a year ago. After being retired for almost a year and a half, my brain is finally catching up to the fact that I am actually retired. I can work on myself now that this is allowed. It took a minute for my brain to get the email. And the losses. Moran writes about the loss in a way that doesn't perform grief. It just tells the truth about it. And this past year has handed me enough loss that my whole outlook has shifted. I need to enjoy my life. I need to do what I want to do. Not someday, now. The losses taught me that. There are days I feel completely alone. I can fall down the rabbit hole fast and I do go down frequently. But like Moran's protagonist, I've learned that I have to lean on other people. I have to make myself get out of the hole. I mean the house. Sometimes those are the same thing. I'm not sure I'm even fully living the new version of me yet. I know that might sound strange coming from someone who hosts a show about reinvention and second acts. But I think that's exactly why I needed to share that. I still carry secrets. I still feel like a nomad in my own life. Like I haven't quite landed yet. Like the place I'm standing isn't quite the place that's mine. And I think that's why when I finished this book, I thought to myself, there might be one more move to make. Not just a physical move, a move toward feeling totally free, a move toward being the person I've kept hidden for so long. That version served a purpose. I don't regret it entirely, but it doesn't fit me anymore, and pretending it does is exhausting. The feeling you get when you've tried on your favorite pair of jeans, and they just don't fit like they used to. But you keep them because maybe one day they'll fit again. Except deep down you know that's not gonna happen, and you know it's time to pass along those jeans. AKA Past Life. I used to think choosing yourself was something you decided once. Like a switch you flipped. Wake up one morning fully formed, no more shedding required. That's not how it works, at least not for me. For me, it's a daily thing, sometimes an hourly thing. The choosing is happening right now, in this recording, saying these things out loud to you, to myself. This is the part of choosing. This is me deciding again today to show up as honestly as I know how. The protagonist in the new old me doesn't reach a perfect destination. She arrives at herself, messy, mid-process, still figuring it out, but present for it. And I think that's what the new version actually looks like. Not finished, not polished, just honest and still in motion. So what does choosing yourself actually look like in practice? Because I think we throw that phrase around a lot without getting into specifics. For me, right now, it looks like this. It looks like working on this podcast, really working on it, evaluating my skills, making it the best it can be with what I've got, and then getting better. That's not just a professional goal. That's me saying my voice matters. That's me saying I have something worth saying. It looks like making a plan for my immediate future, getting finances in order, going through what I own and asking, does this serve where I'm going? The things that don't get packed up are given to someone who can use them. I'm in the process of removing old layers to make room for the new ones. Here's the part I want to leave with you today. For a long time I was so busy nurturing everyone around me that I forgot to nurture myself. A lot of us do that. It becomes so automatic, it stops feeling like a choice. It just feels like who are you? And then one day you look up and you think, wait, who is taking care of me? The answer, it turns out, is supposed to be me. I'm still learning that, still practicing it, but I know it now in a way I didn't before. And the losses, the retirement, the podcast, this book, all of it has been pointing me toward the same truth. Remove the old layers, let the new ones grow, nurture yourself. That's not selfish, that's survival. And for some of us, it might be the bravest thing we have ever done. If any of this landed for you today, if you heard yourself somewhere in this episode, I want to know. Find me on Facebook and Instagram at R2R Broadcasting. Send me a message, tell me your version. Because that's why we're here. Not to have it all figured out, just to figure it out together. I'm Dib La Mata, this is Life's Funny Until It's Not. You're listening to Life's Funny Until It's Not. I'm your host, Dib La Mata. This is Food for Thought, the segment where I share something to sit with. Not advice, not answers, just a perspective worth considering as we move through the season of life. Sometimes we live a great life. Sometimes we feel like we are 100% the person we were meant to be. Or do we? Maybe it's more like 99%, and that 1% you kept locked up for so long you almost forgot it's there. Until you don't. The next person I found while researching hit that 1%. Barbara grew up with a dream. It started when she was a little girl, reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped. She wanted to live in Europe. She carried that dream for decades, and for decades she found reasons not to act on it. Life got in the way, work got in the way. The version of herself that was practical and responsible and rooted in Florida got in the way. Barbara spent 30 years working hard, interesting jobs that she poured herself into, but none of it was the kind of work that let you build a real escape fund. And so the dream stayed exactly where it had always been. Tucked away, patient, waiting. Then COVID happened. In 2021, when the whole world was locked down and everyone was focused, was forced to sit still and look at their lives. Barbara had what she later described as a now or never moment. She was 62 years old, single, and her kids were grown, and she was still in Florida, living the version of herself that had never quite fit. From the moment she made the decision to the moment she stepped off the plane in Portugal was eight months. Eight months to close out a life and start a new one. She didn't know a single person there. She didn't speak the language, she had never even visited the country before. She chose a small fishing village, packed up her life in a suitcase, and started over. Barbara shared that it wasn't easy. The loneliness was real, the bureaucracy was real, the moments of doubts were real. There were days when she had to sit with the weight of what she had done and ask herself exactly what she thought she was doing. She could have grabbed her suitcase and ran, but she didn't. When Barbara was asked why she really made the move, she did not say it was about the weather or the or the cost of living or the food, though all of it was true. She said moving to Portugal felt like a return to who she used to be and who she wanted to be. Not who she had become, who she had always been underneath it. She has been in Portugal for four years now. She wrote a memoir about her first year called American Ex Pat, Moving Abroad Solo After 60. She is still there as of this year, still writing, still building a life that fits. She shed the version of herself that no longer fit, and she did it at 62, alone in a country where she did not speak the language. I think about what it takes to do that. The internal permission. That the version of you that everyone knows that you yourself have been performing for decades is a coat you have been wearing that stopped fitting a long time ago. Barbara finally took the coat off. And on the other side of that, the decision was the small fishing village. The Atlantic and herself. I'm pretty sure you know where Portugal is, and I believe you know what version of yourself you have been holding back, and I believe the way Barbara clearly believed that it's never too late to go find her. That's your food for thought for today. I'm Deb La Mata, and I'll leave that one right there with you. You're listening to Life's Funny Until It's Not. I'm your host, Dib La Mata. This is what I'm learning, where I share what's on my mind, what I'm reading, what I'm stumbling through, because staying curious is one of the ways we keep ourselves alive at this stage of life. Sometimes I read so much on so many different topics that I actually have to shut my brain off. Close my eyes and take my mind to a quiet spot on the beach. With my eyes closed and regulating my breathing, I feel the sun on my face, the gentle lapping of waves as they come up on the sand. I can feel my brain calming down, sorting out all the pieces I had been reading and making notes to refer back when needed. While I'm still sitting on the beach in my mind, I think about what have I learned? Am I the person that I want to be, or is there still more ahead? There are days that I feel like I don't want to try anything else new, read anything else new, or even reinvent myself one more time. I'm tired. I am completely and utterly tired. If I could actually put myself on that beach in reality and do nothing but sit there and enjoy the sun, sand, and water, I think I could be content at this point of my life. I have worked for 50 plus years. Don't have much, do have a roof over my head, but I feel like I'm running on steam. Then the next thought is, well, you're really not ready to give up the ship. And except I'm not sure how to do the next chapter of my life. What do I truly want to do next? Where do I want to put down roots? I know this next chapter has to be about me, to take care of me, to be the most authentic me. I will keep on reading, flipping the pages till I get to the next chapter. And maybe that's enough for right now. Beach will be there when I need it, the next chapter will be there when I'm ready. And that's when I'm learning. I'm still figuring it out, but I'm still showing up for it. And so are you. I'm Deb La Mata. This is Life's Funny Until It's Not, and I'll see you next time.