Remember all those big dreams? The ones you put on the back burner so you could hold down a job or raise a family? They’re calling your name. And just because you haven’t achieved them by now doesn’t mean it’s too late. Fulfilling a lifelong passion at 40, 50, 60 or beyond is just as sweet—if not sweeter—than it is at 25. Just ask these three women. After years of false starts, they finally hit their stride after 40—and they’ve never looked back.
From Fantasies to Reality
The first creative writing class Diana Cosby, 51, took three decades ago wasn’t exactly a confidence booster. “I struggled during the entire course,” admits Diana, who’d registered for the college class when she was a 21-year-old naval meteorological technician stationed in Hawaii. “However, by the very last assignment, things started to click.” She thought the short story she’d sweated over for days was the best thing she’d ever written. But when her instructor returned her assignment, a snarky note was red-inked at the top: Whoever wrote this paper gets an A-, but you get a D+. The insinuation: Diana’s writing before that had been so bad, she must have cheated. “I was devastated. Then and there I gave up the idea of writing.”
Or she meant to, anyway. Even as she got married in 1988, started a family, bought a home in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and worked her way up the naval ranks, Diana kept telling coworkers that she wanted to be a writer. Feeding that desire was a steady diet of romance novels— books Diana enjoyed less for their love scenes than for how the romantic fantasies “inspire hope. There’s always a happy ending,” she says.
In 1996, when the Navy offered her early retirement at age 36, she jumped at the chance to stay home with her three young children, ages 5, 4 and 3, and work on plan B: writing a novel. The family would do fine on her then-husband’s military officer salary. “It felt like I’d come home,” she says.
Her days started at 4 a.m. While the rest of her family slept, she’d quietly creep into the living room to tap out a few pages on her computer. A year later, she had a completed manuscript of a historical romance set in Viking times. “It was horrible!” she laughs. “That’s the thing about being a writer—you always believe your stories are amazing. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t continue.”
At the time, though, confident she had a winner, Diana sent the manuscript off to one publisher after another. When rejection number 100 arrived, she quit counting. “I thought of it as a test to see if I wanted what I said I wanted,” Diana says. And she did, badly. The only thing left to do was work harder. “If my writing wasn’t selling to those publishers, I needed to do more research, take more classes. For me a ‘no’ means to look for other avenues,” she says.
As her predawn writing sessions continued, Diana transformed herself into an eager student of the craft. To steep her historical romances in realism, she researched the time period. She signed up for online classes taught by her favorite romance writers and followed their suggestions.
Diana’s writing slowly improved, and she finished a second novel, then a third and a fourth. Each amassed its own collection of rejections, in a cycle that went on unbroken for years. Finally, in 2005, more than nine years after she had started writing, Diana got The Call. A publishing house in New York City wanted to buy her eighth novel, His Captive, the first in a series set in medieval Scotland. “I cried,” she says.
The novel came out in 2007, when Diana was 47. Since then, two more have been published, and another is due out in October. “The first time I saw my novel in a bookstore, I stared at it in shock,” she says. “When I noticed someone nearby, I blurted out, ‘I wrote that.’ I’d always dreamed of saying those words.”
Lessons Learned
Tap into envy. “I stewed over other first-time authors’ novel sales. Then I realized that jealousy was a shortcut to figuring out what I wanted in life. If you envy someone, ask yourself, What am I jealous of? Your answer is your goal.”
Set achievable goals. “My military training taught me to dream big, but also to break down goals into a series of bite-size steps. Since churning out an entire novel sounded terrifying, I focused on one smaller, more feasible goal: Write a few pages a day. It’s not as overwhelming.”
Find mentors. “Many writers helped me along the way, like Shirley Rogerson. She’d just published her first romance novel when I met her, and we became fast friends. I asked her to critique the book I was writing, and I did the same for her. You can use local groups and your own social network to connect with people who do what you dream of doing. Pick their brain, but make sure to offer something in return.”
Music for the Soul
Dressed in a sparkling blue shift, 54-year-old Sharon Jones works the microphone at her sold-out show, singing with an intensity that captivates the audience. While her eight-member soul band, the Dap-Kings, blares trumpets and saxophones behind her, Sharon paces the stage, belting out the title song of her 2010 hit album, I Learned the Hard Way. Never mind that Sharon is barely over 5 feet tall. When she opens her mouth, she’s a powerhouse.
Ever since her childhood in Brooklyn, New York, Sharon’s been the small girl with the big voice. “People would say, ‘Ooh, that little girl can sing,’” she says. “Even then, I knew God had given me a gift.” She used it every chance she got—in church with her sister, in the chorus at school—and dreamed of being the next Aretha Franklin.
In 1976, at age 20, Sharon got what she thought would be her big break: the chance to audition for a producer. But instead of handing her a contract, he said she was “too black, too fat and too short” to succeed in the music business. “That kind of comment sticks with you,” says Sharon. But she didn’t give up. She worked a series of day jobs to pay the bills, and kept singing at night, eventually joining a wedding band for 10 years. Thoughts of a record deal were put on hold.
In 1996, when she was 40, a boyfriend recommended her for a job singing on an album being recorded by local New York band The Soul Providers. Her knock-’em-dead voice so staggered the producer, Gabriel Roth, that he recruited her four years later to front his new funk/soul band, the Dap-Kings. That Sharon was 44 didn’t faze Gabriel. “The reason people are so attracted to her is because she sings from her heart,” he says.
Success didn’t come overnight, however. “We toured and toured for the first five or six years,” says Sharon. By the mid-2000s, as word of mouth spread, the band caught fire, even performing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Last year, their album debuted at #15 on the Billboard chart.
Now, after 30 years of struggle, Sharon has finally hit her stride. “I didn’t get to do what I wanted to do when I was younger,” she says. “All that energy is still in me.” And, at long last, she’s letting it out.
Lessons Learned
Be willing to sacrifice. “I found myself under my mother’s roof again at age 40 because money was so tight. Swallowing my pride and moving home gave me financial wiggle room to go on tour when the Dap-Kings came calling in 2000.”
Put in the work. “My career involved years of long hours and little sleep. Even now, the grueling tours can be exhausting. It’s hard work, but performing is what I love to do. The other guys don’t want to be on the road so much, but I say, ‘Look, I’m 54 years old, I don’t have much time.’ My philosophy: Rather than looking at age as a drawback, use it as an incentive to roll up your sleeves.”
When all else fails, do it yourself. “If others aren’t willing to help you, find a way to get there on your own. I knew I’d have to make my own success. So I quit looking to major record labels and instead maneuvered around them to help build an independent label—one that allows me to shine.”
A Helping Hand
Standing in the dining room of her Washington, DC, home, Barbara E. Joe blew out the candles on her 60th birthday cake and made a wish—the same one she’d been making for 40 years: “I’m joining the Peace Corps!” But her family and friends didn’t really believe she’d do it. For years, Barbara, now 73, wasn’t sure she would either. But she remembered the longing she felt in 1961 when she heard President Kennedy announce the formation of the Peace Corps. “I wished I could do that,” she recalls.
A natural-born idealist who’d traveled the world with her parents, Barbara had seen the poverty of other countries and wanted badly to help. But life intervened: marriage, four children, work, a divorce. “I wasn’t thinking Peace Corps at that point. I was just trying to put food on the table,” she says.
Barbara was still plodding along when, in 1994, she got word that her 27-year-old son, Andrew, had died in a work accident. “The hurt went too deep for any sort of comfort,” she says. Over the next few years, a foster son, her ex-husband, then her father all passed away. When the haze of grief began to lift in 1998, Barbara found herself thinking about the Peace Corps again. “I thought, ‘If I’m ever going to do this, I should do it now.’”
So that year, shortly after turning 60, she began the application process. In January 2000 Barbara got her assignment: Honduras. She reported there in May, and after three months of training, taught locals about AIDS prevention, handed out medications and even helped deliver a few babies. “The place where my mom was staying had a dirt floor and a net-covered cot,” says daughter Stephanie, who went to check on her mother in 2001. “But she was happy”—so much so that Barbara extended her 27-month stint to almost three and a half years. She still goes back to Honduras every February to volunteer. “At age 73, I’m finding new ways to make the most of every day.”
Lessons Learned
You can reinvent yourself, no matter what your age. The Peace Corps has no upper age limit. In fact, an 85-year-old woman is currently serving in Morocco! “To anyone who dares suggest that volunteering is for the young, I say as long as you’re breathing, it’s not too late to try something new. It can be anything.”
Know your own strength. “When my family members died, I withstood some of the worst life had to dish out—and survived. My advice? Take stock of the hardships that have made you stronger, and remind yourself that you’re tough enough to take a risk. Sure, things might not go perfectly, but you can handle it.”
Stop procrastinating. “There were always plenty of reasons to postpone joining the Peace Corps, but eventually I realized that pursuing a dream is worth the time. After so many years thinking about it, I knew I had to put up or shut up. Don’t save your bucket list for later. Start crossing off your lifetime to-dos now.”
If You Want To…
Discover what your passion is: Take our quiz.
Write a book: Go to WritersDigest.com for writing conferences info.
Sing: Go to OpenMikes.org to find open-mike nights near you.
Volunteer: Go to 1-800-Volunteer.org for opportunities in your town.
Start a business: Go to Score.org for free how-tos.
Return to school: Go to SuperCollege.com to find scholarships and grants for adults.
Photos: John Dolan
Melody Warnick has written for Ladies’ Home Journal, Parenting and numerous other magazines.