Many Modern Elders, because of our age, have parents, siblings, and friends whose health is failing. We find out through a diagnosis, or we witness it simply as the effects of aging.

I was listening to talk radio in New Mexico last month. Yes, there are long expanses of highway here, so it’s becoming an unusual pastime of mine. On this day, a middle-aged man was sobbing about how his mother had "lost her marbles" based upon early-stage dementia.

A year of nomading and grieving. A year of honoring and not fixing. A year of active and empathic listening. A year of loving, not just others, but myself. A year of powerful badassery. A year exploring and navigating being Just to The Left of Death three times.

As we approach year-end, it’s natural to start looking—with hope—at 2022, especially given the emotional complexities of the past two years. While we’re happy to announce that MEA’s first four workshops of the new season are now full, we still have a plentiful slate of exciting workshops available. Of course, we encourage you to review your options below and take action sooner than later.

This essay is about a book. From Start-up to Grown-up was birthed at an MEA workshop in Jan 2020 and nourished into existence at a Sabbatical Session in February 2021. It’s about the transformations an entrepreneur must undergo as she grows from the founder of a tiny business to being the leader of a thriving company.

It comes to all of us in the end: that crushing moment when you suddenly feel old. The trigger might be a milestone birthday, an illness or an injury, a romantic snub or a missed promotion at work.

Wow! It’s been 20 months since we had to close the MEA Baja campus and cancel our remaining 2020 and early 2021 workshops. Fortunately, Sabbatical Sessions and MEA Online were created to serve our community during the darkest days of the pandemic...and both continue to thrive.

The overarching thing I realized in midlife is that it’s one thing to have a life well-saved for, and a whole other level to have a life well-lived.

"I'm often humbled by technology. It's a constant learning curve, and something that I feel is holding me back - or at least I can make myself feel it's holding me back. I'm thinking about why it takes me so much longer to adapt to new tech versus younger audiences. I guess that in our youth, we dabbled with machines, and to poke around with those was more dangerous. I'm less experimental and understanding of tech than younger audiences. How do we handle this? I worry it's going to create an artificial ceiling for my career. How did you handle it at Airbnb?" - A Wisdom Well subscriber

I have known for a long time that I wanted to create meaningful connections for the generations above mine – I just didn't know exactly what to build to make that happen. So, I did what most entrepreneurs do – I talked to potential users and reached out to anyone who was active in this space.