One of the simultaneously scary and exciting things about moving and purging is the opportunity it creates for personal reinvention. What can feel like the ground falling away beneath you can actually be space opening up around you for your transformation to take place. While I dream about reinventing my life I'm reading inspiring stories of women who are doing just that.

The New York Times recently shared stories of two famous designing women who each lost her business and are bouncing back fabulously anew. First, Eric Wilson told us about how Sigrid Olsen was coping with "forced retirement" when the restructuring of Liz Claiborne led to the shuttering of her eponymous fashion business. And then Sara Rimer shared stories from Olsen's post-retirement life:

Talk about working at home. Ms. Olsen is living in her gallery here at the Rocky Neck art colony in Gloucester with her husband, Curtis Sanders. Her new gallery and home are merged in the small but airy color-splashed, renovated bungalow that used to be their summer place and is now their year-round residence, and the incubator for Ms. Olsen’s post-Liz Claiborne reinvention of herself as an artist and entrepreneur....

After she lost her job, and her business, she decided it was time for radical change. At 54, she moved into the summer bungalow and began painting ceramics, cards and watercolors, returning to being the artist she was in her 20s, when she was living in a $60-a-month, 600-square-foot cabin with no indoor plumbing in Rockport, Mass. Living in her studio, and working in her home, got Ms. Olsen and Mr. Sanders thinking about selling their 3,600-square-foot house, in Hamilton, Mass., a 20-minute drive away. All that space and luxury — two decks for entertaining, four bedrooms, a separate apartment for visitors — no longer made sense. The taxes alone were about $12,000 a year. Then there was the constant hiring of people to paint the house, mow the lawn, and do repairs....

Continue reading "From the Fast Lane to the Bike Lane"

The second newly re-minted designer is Rachel Ashwell of Shabby Chic fame who is bringing shabby back. Again:

So when Shabby Chic filed for bankruptcy last January after nearly 20 years in business, its creator, Rachel Ashwell, felt both anguish and humiliation, not to mention flat-out exhaustion.

Ms. Ashwell, who had just turned 50 and had already been blown sideways by the recent death of her mother, was soon presiding over the liquidation of 15 stores and the dismissal of her hand-picked teams of upholsterers and sewers, designers and salespeople. Afterward, she imagined she would be taking a well-deserved, if not exactly planned-for, rest. But it was not to be....

And so it was that last month she found herself hurtling between New York, her home in Santa Monica and London, stocking three new stores with the chipped white furniture and blowsy upholstered pieces that had long been her trademark.

"Making Shabby Chic, Again" by Penelope Green

Well-known designers are not the only ones picking themselves up, dusting themselves off and starting all over again. Blogger and writer Jane Devin for example. Jane is spending a year traveling across the United States and blogging stories from the road:

In Davenport, it was writer Jane who listened to a woman named Angie talk about how confused she was by her sister’s recent decision to go on the road in a van and sell her art. Angie told me that hearing the story of my journey made her wonder if she should be more supportive and less skeptical of her sister’s dreams. I encouraged her to do so, because whether a dream lasts for a week or a year – and even when the end is unpredictable – living out one dream allows others to be created. I’m not going to spend my year on the road wondering or worrying what will happen when the last person has been met and the last state visited. I’m determined, instead, to use every day to its fullest potential.

"Avon Ladies, Imperfect Teeth, Rosie, and the Essential Kindness of Women in Iowa" at Finding My America

In a post before before her trip and new blog launched, Jane wrote about a conversation with a friend:

She told me that, despite her fear, she was enrolling in a Masters program for teaching. I told her about my upcoming cross-country journey. We then laughed at ourselves and pumped each other full of warm encouragement.  Two forty-something, empty-nest women who were waking up to changed lives and new possibilities. Both of us simultaneously understanding that we needed so much more than memories of motherhood and faded, underpaid careers to get us to the next level of our lives. Both of us a little afraid, but still willing to take risks and dream big.

And that's the most exciting part of reinventing yourself like your own unique version of Madonna - dreaming big. I'm having fun dreaming who I could be untethered and unbound. Even if I don't take off on an awesome adventure like Jane Devin or start a fiery affair with a much younger professional athlete like Madge was rumored to have, I can dream up wild and crazy new directions for my life. And those big dreams contain hints and clues I could use to figure out small concrete steps I could take towards creating a brand new me.

Have you ever shaken your life up and reinvented yourself? I'd love an introduction to the new you!

Related Reading:

Four Stories of Starting Over - The Washington Post

Everyone Thinks You're Nuts

Fairfax resident Helen Chamberland, 61, abandoned the rat-race lifestyle of Los Angeles in 1987 to follow her passion for teaching to Tokyo, where she taught English for three years....

The most difficult part was telling my friends and family. Some thought I was crazy, and others just didn't understand. I also sold everything except some clothes and a few of my favorite books. When I finally quit my job, the reality really hit me. I was going to live in Tokyo, and I had no job and I knew no one there. I was terrified and exhilarated a rated at the same time.

Talani Sanislo at Associated Content: Overnight Personal Reinvention

Reinvention is exciting! It can be as simple as changing your physical look, or as transforming as changing your mind about how you will live life. You can reinvent yourself to be ready to apply for a job in a totally different field by making the choice to continue your education. You can reinvent how you spend your time for different results. You can reinvent how you spend your money which can impact your life in a variety of ways. You don't have to be who you were yesterday. You can reinvent today. And today's choices can reinvent tomorrow.

g.g. Spirit Writes: Reinventing Me

Becoming complacent is never a good thing, even if you feel you are in a good place. That’s what I recently learned. I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life but I had grown comfortable, fat and accepting. I believe in Divine intervention. When you become stagnant the universe will give you just the right kick in the ass to get you off the proverbial couch....

I’m reinventing myself as an individual and hope that my husband is taking the opportunity to do the same. We met as teenagers, have known each other for nineteen years and became strangers, to each other and to ourselves. In order to move forward, we each need to learn who we are individually and reintroduce those two people to each other. I’m looking forward to seeing the new me and the new him.

Susan Barrett Price at Mad In Pursuit: Reinventing Myself

Last night I decided that I had reinvented myself three times. “Reinvention” in my case means throwing over a settled life for something completely different. For me, these all fell into the “I’M OUTTA HERE!” category, after an excruciating process of realizing I’d boxed myself in. Like one of those autumn flies who wind up indoors throwing themselves against the window pane, regretting that they’d been tempted by the warmth. Understanding that, come spring, their little carcasses will be swept up off the window sill unless something dramatic doesn’t happen damn quick.

Jean Boggio at Under The Main Sun: Reinventing Myself -- Again. Thanks, Julia Child

Just what is it that I'm doing now? I'm on the brink of writing my next book based on my decision in my mid-sixties to leave my home of thirty years and move to Maine, 500 miles away, buy a big old house on the banks of a small river, start a new job and make new friends. I'm still inventing that phase. I'm also looking at the next phase and preparing for it. I'm expanding my cooking skills with inspiration from Julia Child (no -- I started on this even before I knew there was a movie). I'm looking over possible locations for my next home, reviewing and extending my knowledge of French in order to travel often to France, and planning to go back to teaching on a limited basis once my nursing career draws to a close. My house in Maine is on the market, and I'm learning to knit. I'm attempting to expand my mind by reading more about women's issues, and attending a monthly meeting of older women intent on examining the issues that we face and discussing how we are dealing with them.

Is that enough to keep me out of mischief?

Rachel DeVault guest blogging at Necessity. The Mother of All Reinvention

On a Thursday night a short while ago, Lara stopped by my house to pick up a CD. We chatted for a moment at the door, and she said something that really set my mental wheels turning. “The one thing about moving is that you can sort of re-invent yourself.”

Judi Freedman at A Baby Boomer Woman's Life After 50: Toasting the Year

To Reinvention (Me,me, me, me! I'll be blogging more about my reinvention in the coming year.)

BlogHer CE Maria Niles reinvents her life at PopConsumer