The only thing more exciting than becoming an author is helping someone else become an author. We are so excited through our new Three Tomatoes publishing Services, to publish Jane Goldman’s wonderful book, “With No Regrets…Getting Older: Face It, Live It, Love It”.  Jane is an insightful and witty writer who is not afraid to examine her own life and taps into universal feelings of growing older, loss, regrets, happiness and so much more. You’ll be inspired to live your life “with no regrets.”

Read the excerpt below and get the book, available exclusively on Amazon.  

That Next Stage

I started talking to myself. Just like that.

It began in the grocery store, not too long ago. “Toothpaste, instant coffee,” I said out loud. Someone picked up their head to respond. But it was only my own attention I sought. How did this happen to me? Did this mean the beginning of the end of my “younger years” and the start of that next stage of my life? Why was I talking to myself? I wasn’t lonely. Was it to help me remember?

Frankly, I don’t recall.

This left me with the question of how one knows when you leave your “younger years” and enter that next stage. There is simply no official announcement. However there just might be some cues:

Like when people no longer say, “You look good” but rather “You look good for your age”. Or when in response to announcing the news that you may be planning a facelift, friends no longer say, “Don’t be ridiculous,” but ask the name of your proposed surgeon.

It could also be when your cosmetic upkeep, maintenance, and doctors’ appointments take almost as much time as a part-time job, when the first twenty minutes of your massage are spent detailing all your problem areas.

Or maybe more to the point, it’s when you realize you prefer to dine at six, not because it’s cheaper, but because the restaurant is less noisy; when you and your similarly aged dining companion instantly reach for reading glasses when the menu arrives; when a waiter’s interruption means the permanent end of a thought; when you both can understand each other perfectly without either of you remembering the name of anything you are talking about; when the exciting subject matter of your conversation is not necessarily about your new lover but about the positive effects of your estrogen replacement.

And maybe it’s just the simple fact that you can actually digest your lunch while discussing such topics as removing fat from your waist and implanting it in your butt or paralyzing the muscle between your eyes to remove age lines. 

Of course, there’s also those daily cues: that almost everyone reporting the news, those running the government suddenly got younger than you; and the reverse, when suddenly “older” men you had been attracted to are now simply too old to date.

But if none of the above cues you to entering that next stage, then what about when you find your phone in your refrigerator, your English muffins in your dresser; when you arrive in front of your closet with absolutely not the slightest idea why you are there.

On the other hand, maybe it’s something else.

Just maybe it’s when you really believe that if you have your health you have everything; when you are aware and very grateful when you wake up that nothing hurts; when you know a mistake will not cost you a job; when you begin to care more about who you like rather than who likes you; when you know anything bad is only temporary; when you know you can survive loss, no matter how painful.

I think my entry into that next stage will be official when I fully embrace and act on the realization that life ends, that each day, each moment counts, and is to be celebrated. That would, for me, be something to really talk about, even at the grocery store, even if out loud, and even if just to myself

An excerpt from “With No Regrets…Getting Older: Face It, Live, Love It” by Jane H. Goldman. Book, text, and images Copyright 2019 by Jane H. Goldman. Published by The Three Tomatoes. All rights reserved.

About the author

Jane H. Goldman is a renaissance woman. For many years, she was General Counsel-Vice President of Warner Bros Distributing Corporation and thereafter litigation counsel to its parent company, Time Warner Inc. She now pursues and lives her passions, which include painting, sculpting, music, and writing. In addition, she won a Drama Desk Award as associate producer of the hit comedy “Celebrity Autobiography”. She received her BA from Barnard College and her law degree from NYU.