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I’m A 70-year-old Woman. So What's Ahead?

Personal Perspectives

I’m a 70-Year-Old Woman. So What's Ahead?

Personal Perspective: Turning 70 is much more than just a number.

Posted November 9, 2026

Key points

Turning 70 can prompt a search for new meaning even when life is healthy, full, and satisfying.
Letting go of adult children is an ongoing adjustment, not a single parenting milestone.
Gratitude for ordinary family moments can ease uncertainty without resolving it permanently.

I turned 70 in October. My best friend, who is two months older than me, kept telling me it is okay and that once I decide how I’m going to mark the day, my life will get back on track. I knew she was right, but as the weeks approached, I started to think about what 70 meant for me. None of the other decades had hit me in this way.

Is this moment a reminder? An opportunity to think about how to make meaning and how I want to live my life from now? Do I want change?

I wondered why I was reflecting on this, anyway. I figured that by thinking about it intentionally (that new overused word that I love) it must mean that there is some sort of change happening. An awareness of another passing.

So what’s my new game plan?

I'm taking emotional stock of where I am.

I have a full life with my husband of 48 years, and we are both healthy. Big tick.

I have three children who are all partnered, settled, and have worthwhile creative lives. I have five beautiful grandchildren, from 15 to almost 3, and another due next year. They light up my life, and I love spending time with them. They are growing up quickly. Even the 3-year-old already has a full calendar.

I have friends and family in Australia and in the U.S.

I have a satisfying work life.

All ticks.

So the question is, why would I want to change anything?

That's the rational answer.

But something was still unsettling me.

Then I realised that I was on the precipice of a new phase of letting go. My playbook, guided by the work of Edna Furman, to let go of my children at each stage holds, and I know at 70 I have yet a new bridge to cross. A vital one.

But what is this bridge? My children don't need me on a day-to-day basis; they are all separate, self-sufficient, and inhabit their own orbits.

Seventy is a recalibration. There is a sort of tussle with my own and my husband’s mortality. Not in a morbid way, but in a real way that I hadn’t thought about before.

It's a recognition that while we are okay now, a time will come when we go to the doctor and… I am constantly aware that many other people, including those much younger than us, must manage this reality daily.

I go back 12 years to when I single-handedly took my twin grandchildren to the park and chased them both as they went in different directions. I am very active, but could I do this now? I have trouble safely keeping up with a 3-year-old running down the street.

I need to reconsider how to find my new meaning. I turn to role models, those women who are the same stage as me. I find comfort once again in the words of my best friend, who has been a major part of my life for 58 years. She is also in the process of letting go of her children; we have talked about it incessantly for the last 10 years. While she has three daughters that she is very close to, and is available when really needed, she made the intentional decision not to be “the sleepover Nanna." Her artwork nourishes her, as does her time with her family. She refuses to rush, and she has found peace. Most of the time.

I think about how this can apply to me. I know I’d like to read more because it feeds my soul. I have a particular volunteer programme that I am going to embark on.

And I want to continue my work on letting go, mothering, and maybe some literature and film. I’m not sure yet.

The reality is my disquiet will lead me somewhere. It always does.

Reality Check

As always, I go to psychological theory to help me.

The words of Edna Furman come rushing back into my mind. They have guided me to let go, that others are "there to be left." I am faced with yet another new adjustment. The post I wrote last April needs an update.

Then I go to respected psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, whose developmental life stages offer guidance for psychosocial growth. He presents life clearly as a struggle between major turning points which need to be resolved before moving forward. According to this, I’m moving from middle adulthood, generativity vs. stagnation, toward later adulthood, which occurs at 65-plus, marked by integrity vs. despair.

How does this apply to me? I take this as my need to be generative, productive, and useful, while I move toward wisdom and fighting off the negativity about mortality and decline. I recall the mantras that I repeat daily: don't be a victim, no shoulds, it’s not about me, adapt and harness positive energy.

Then I imagine what journalist Abigail Shrier, in her “Tough Love” advice column in Free Press, would say to me in her loving, chiding way.