Women in the Arena
Women in the Arena is the celebration of everyday women living extraordinary lives in plain sight. We seek to inspire, encourage and challenge you to reach for the great heights you're made for.
Women in the Arena
Crossing 51: What Debbie Russell Gave Up to Gain Herself
What would you trade for more time? After 25 years prosecuting high-profile cases in Minneapolis, Debbie Russell made a decision many dream of but few execute – walking away from her legal career at 55, trading a full pension for what she calls "full-time freedom."
Her journey represents a profound lesson in the power of choice and the courage required to author your own next chapter. Since her twenties, Debbie had been planning this transition, understanding that her legal career would be just one segment of a multifaceted life. This wasn't about escaping a job she hated, but about honoring a promise she'd made to her younger self.
The path wasn't without emotional hurdles. Debbie describes the strange experience of a virtual retirement party during the pandemic that felt like "attending her own wake." This speaks to the process of "unbecoming" that precedes becoming something new – shedding an identity cultivated over decades involves genuine grief, even when you're ready to move forward.
Through writing her award-winning book "Crossing 51: Not Quite a Memoir," Debbie found purpose in connecting her midlife transformation with her grandfather's parallel journey at the same age. His story – becoming addicted to Demerol while working as a successful physician, then dying at just 59 – taught her that time is finite and not guaranteed. This realization infuses her current life with mindful appreciation for each day.
Most remarkably, after moving to a 10-acre rural property, Debbie found herself feeling less lonely than ever before. Despite having fewer people physically around her, her relationships became intentional rather than circumstantial. Her story offers profound insights for anyone facing midlife transitions – whether through retirement, empty nesting, or simply questioning "what's next?"
Visit https://debbie-russell.com to learn more about her journey and connect about her book. What chapter will you write next?
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, we're going to talk to another amazing, incredibly brave woman who realized that she had the power of choice. My guest this week is Debbie Russell, and she is an attorney turned writer. She spent 25 years as an assistant county attorney in Minneapolis, prosecuting numerous high-profile cases. She also fought off several cases of nervous breakdowns. At age 55, debbie took an early retirement. She gave up a full pension for full-time freedom. She now spends her precious time writing, restoring her property to a native prairie and wetlands and training her rambunctious retrievers. She also wrote an award-winning book, crossing 51, not Quite a Memoir, and released it in June of 2023. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Debbie. Debbie, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Debbie :Thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show, hi, audra, and thank you so much for the opportunity to talk with you today.
Audra :I am really excited for you to be here, and let's just talk about the intro. What do you mean? You fought off numerous breakdowns. I mean, when I read your bio and I even mentioned this to you when I read that, I thought I laughed because I'm like I can relate. I feel that I don't know if she means this literally or figuratively, because in both cases I feel that too. Is that being stressed out, overwhelmed and thinking can I do this another day? And is that what led you to take an early retirement?
Debbie :Those are great questions because I know that this little snippet of my bio has caused both responses and reactions. And I put it in there sort of tongue in cheek because the nature of my work was really, really tough. But during the time that I was doing the work I was really good at compartmentalizing, and so I would do the work and I would go home and I would play with my dogs or I'd work in my garden. And it was only after I'd had some time away from it where I started to realize just how extraordinarily stressful it was. It was not that that caused me to take an early retirement.
Debbie :I had planned from the time I started in the county attorney's office as a very young lawyer I think I was maybe not quite 30. And I knew that they were going to be taking up a portion of my salary to go towards a pension and all I had to do was stick it out until I was 55. And I could take a pension. Now it's quite reduced from what it could have been had I stayed until I think it's either 65 or 67.
Debbie :But even in my late 20s I thought I'll do this for this next chapter of my career and then I'll do something else, and so I, in those early days, just started saving money, and so it's been an interesting adjustment, I can say, when my pension is basically 19% of what my high five salary was at the end of my career in the county attorney's office. But when I wrote that bio, it was clear to me that for me, time is much more valuable than money. We all need a certain amount of money to get by, but I don't need that much money. What I really crave and what I really love is the time.
Audra :You know, and I think that as we all get older, that's what we all crave is we crave the value of our time, of our own time. We actually start to crave the value of our own company because we don't get that all that much. We don't get to spend time with ourselves that isn't distracted by something else, that it isn't being pulled in a different direction, with some other responsibility. And you were willing to exchange commerce money for your time and you suddenly had this power of choice. So when you and I first met, you told me a story about how you came into writing. You always had this desire to write and I was actually so impressed and moved by how you suddenly were embraced by this power of your own choice. You had such a self-awareness of all of these choices that you had. You had this self-awareness in your late 20s and that carried you through to your mid-50s. And you had all of these choices.
Audra :But when you arrive there, what do you do with them? And I'm asking you these questions because a lot of my audience is there Now. They may be in different circumstances. You are a single woman. You don't have children. However, there are a lot of people, a lot of women that are listening, that are like I'm there too, I'm in my mid fifties and they're empty nesters. Some of them are married, some of them aren't, but suddenly they're reassessing and going. I have choices. What do I do with them? What did you do with them?
Debbie :choices. What do I do with them? What did you do with them? Well, such a great question.
Debbie :And you know, I started writing at a very low point in my prosecutor career. I was really hating my job but also realizing I'm not going to quit, I'm not going to go do anything else. I'm on this plan and I can get through it. But I need to find another way to kind of get the thoughts out of your head and onto paper. And in my case, I just started writing some things and then I started to share the blog, because at first I didn't really want to share it. It was just, you know my own personal stuff really want to share it. It was just, you know, my own personal stuff. And what was so amazing about when I started to share these things, which were at the time really pretty vulnerable, that people out there are just craving that kind of connection where they can say, oh my gosh, that's as you described. You know your audience people. We all have things that are relatable, even though my life might be very different from yours. I can write about my own insecurities and out of all of them you can find a couple that you can relate to, and I think for me it helped me get out of this silo of loneliness that I had started to create for myself, even though every day I was going to work, I was interacting with people, I had a great social life, but because of all the thoughts that were going around in my head that made me feel very, very alone.
Debbie :So I started the blog and then I came across this file folder of letters that my grandfather had written back and forth between my dad and my aunt and my uncle and my grandmother when he, at the age of 51, voluntarily put himself into a federal locked drug rehab program. And I remember I was in my 40s when I found the letters and I thought these letters would make an awesome book. And of course, I'm in my 40s and I'm busy, and you know, even though I didn't have kids, I was in the midst of doing dog training and competition, so I had a whole lot of other things that sort of were competing for my attention, and trying to figure out how to write a book about this just didn't seem like I could get it off the ground. I did go to one class called how to Publish your Book, which seemed really, really intimidating, and so I thought, well, this will be for another day.
Debbie :And then, in 2016, when my dad was accepted into hospice and I realized that I'm going to lose him I don't know when, but I want to make sure I know everything there is to know about his family, and particularly my grandfather, who was a doctor. He was a surgeon. He had become addicted to Demerol. It was a family secret, nobody talked about it.
Debbie :And then what happened was things that started to happen to me in real time, as it related to finding out more about my dad and his family and my own struggles as I hit 51, very coincidentally, and that's how we got the book title but that's when I decided I needed to get myself into therapy, I needed help with everything that was going on, and I think that was going on, and I think you know my book documents in real time a midlife crisis and you know it's my own, but it's also my grandfather's when he was 51. And so what I wanted to do was sort of braid these two stories together and then, as I'm writing the book, figure out what do I get out of telling this story, what do I get out of living the story? And it also documents how I'm marching right up to my age of my planned retirement, where I had certain ideas about what I was going to be doing, but nothing was clear. And for any of your audience out there who has been caring for an aged parent or involved in really really compelling family drama, dynamics, whatever you want to call it, it's very easy to just put your own life. It's very easy to just put your own life off to the side. And even though I didn't have children, all of a sudden all my attention was on what was going on with my dad and all of that. And the next thing, you know, I'm three years away from four years away from retirement and I didn't really have a plan.
Debbie :And what makes this story to me so cool is the serendipity of it all, where things happen. People come into my life that start guiding me and pushing me in certain directions and all of a sudden, my future is starting to come into focus. And then the question becomes. When you talked, audra, about choices and having choices, I think one of the hardest choices we have sometimes is do I have the bandwidth to do this thing, opportunity, can I do it, or am I going to push it off for later.
Debbie :You know that ultimately, we sometimes think I can't, I can't put this on my plate right now, and I went through that several times in this time frame where it's like it's too much, I can't do the things that that are being recommended to me because I got to focus on my dad and my mom and all this that's blowing up with my family.
Debbie :But at the same time, I'm in therapy and I'm learning that you know what? I got to put my own oxygen mask on before I can really even be of any help to anybody else, and it was one of those things where, in real time, it was so very, very overwhelming, but I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. And you know, here I sit with a published book and I'm working on the next one, and it's like I feel so grateful and so just overjoyed at how everything turned out, even though seven, eight years ago I never could have imagined this at all relatable about your story, even though your situation may not be exact to people that are listening, or even to mine.
Audra :The emotions are exactly the same and that's what was so connected when you and I met, because my emotions are exactly the my children, the focus of my life. I ran my career around my children on purpose, because I didn't want to miss out on their lives, because I knew that I only had them for a short period of time. I'm not unique in this. There are many women, many men around this country, this planet for that matter that do the same thing, that make those same choices, and are sitting in my same exact seat right now that their children have launched. Congratulations. Here's your reward your children have launched. Your house is empty and they're going now what? Because I have like you. You're like I can't. I cannot handle any more than what I've got going on right now, because what I'm trying to do is manage chaos, chaos, and then all that chaos flies a coop, and then you're sitting there with all of these choices in front of you and now you're like now what? That's why choices are so powerful, because it's all in your hands, but at the same time, the power of choice is also so overwhelming, which is why I think it's so amazing that you started putting those amazing thoughts into words, into paper.
Audra :Loneliness, and I don't think I've ever had heard anybody mention loneliness of this period of time, even though you had a very active social life, you had a very active work life and you had lots of engagement. I've never heard anybody say out loud how lonely this period of life is because you feel like you're doing it on your own, even though you're not. It feels really isolating. Can you expand a little bit more on that? Because, like I said, I've never heard anybody else say that out loud. Even though I feel it and I know that there are other many other people that feel this too no one else has been brave enough to say that out loud. So since you were brave enough to say it out loud, you got to keep going.
Debbie :Okay, well, and here's a really interesting thing that I became aware of, I would say, in the last five years or so, because, as a single person and I was I just have to say I was a committed single person Like I just at some point I'm like I don't really want, I like this, I like this a lot, but the assumption for us singletons is that, oh, of course we're lonely, we don't want to cook for ourselves, we don't want to do any of these things because we're just sad, lonely people. And then I would hear, or I would see, maybe on TV, married people talk about being lonely, like living in a house with people and being lonely, like living in a house with people and being lonely. So then that's when I started to really think about this, because it's a definition of loneliness versus being alone and they're not the same things. And I think I heard I think it was Cameron Crowe that talked about. He put two phrases together. He said all pain is personal, the personal is universal, and so this you put those two phrases together. And so when you're going through something that in your own mind is super personal, it's not possible that anybody else can be feeling the pain that I'm feeling, oh my God. And you go to work every day carrying the cloud of your own personal pain. But what I've come to learn is if you have the ability to share that pain with somebody else, anybody else and it requires being vulnerable, which I think is so hard for people. And I look at my dogs and you look at the animal kingdom they're all stoic, they're not going to show their wounds, they're not going to show their injuries, because if they show these things, they will get killed.
Debbie :And in my job as a prosecutor, going into court, I couldn't, I couldn't have personal problems because, oh my gosh, then that would get, you know, all of a sudden I'm going to be put on the bench or I'm not going to be able to do what I need to do and all these things. And so we, we keep it all really, really close, and it's my thought that that is what creates the loneliness, because you can't share it and therefore you, you're stuck with it. And so for me, when I just took this leap and it was a friend that you know I had written I'd started writing these little. I'd call them essays, they were blog posts. But I remember him saying to me well, if you don't share them, it's just a diary. I'm like, well, that's true, that is true.
Debbie :And you know a lot of us as kids, girls particularly we had our diaries right. Mine even had a little lock with a key on it and it was just like because it all just needs to stay in this spot where nobody can see it or know about it, spot where nobody can see it or know about it. And to me that is what creates the loneliness, because you're not letting anybody in that might be able to just say you know what, I get it, I get how you feel because I felt this way. And so I think for me just starting to be okay with that that you know, not everybody's going to take what I write the same way, but if I can just reach one person who reads what I write and says, oh my gosh, that's exactly how I think about X or whatever, it's a way to build community.
Debbie :And I mean, for me this next chapter has been so exciting because, I can't tell you, the last time I really felt lonely and I moved out into the country. So I moved an hour away from the city where I had been living and working and I'm on 10 acres, so my neighbors are you know. It's one of those things where you could easily say, well, that's isolating. But I am the least lonely I think I've ever been in my whole life, because my relationships are all very intentional. I make time for them, I prioritize the ones that nurture my soul. I write, I share my writing with people. So it's sort of like it's a weird thing because it's counterintuitive, I think to move out to the country, away from everybody that you've been around, and yet lose all the loneliness. So it's been a really interesting process, I would say.
Audra :You know it's interesting that you say that, because I read this amazing article just last night, right before as I was preparing for our interview, because it's been an interesting thing going through this interesting season of life, this change of life, and it's a change of a chapter for myself and for many others. And it's a physical change of life, it just is. And I was reading through it and I'd never seen anybody describe it quite like this and for the first time I was like, oh, I'm kind of excited about this now. And the way it was described was that during this change, it's an evolution. It's an evolution you have to unbecome what you once were to become the next level of what is in store for you, which is such beautiful imagery, but it's painful. It is very painful. That unbecoming is a process and it's not easy and it comes in layers, it comes in waves, and, just like you that you went through your own unbecoming with all of your choices, it wasn't overnight. Yes, you had a plan. You are.
Audra :If anybody has any doubt, debbie is a type, a personality. I attract them because I know my people. They just come to me, I just know. They know who. They recognize their own, know. They know who they recognize their own. She had a plan. She knew exactly when she was retiring all of this, regardless of the plan, the process was painful, painful, even though she had a target date. The emotions were difficult because she had all these choices to make, the emotions that she had to go through because there was a letting go of who you once were. You had to shed that skin of the prosecutor. That was a closing of a chapter that, I'm sure, even though you were ready to walk away, you had to say goodbye to something that you did for almost 30 years of your life. That was not easy. Regardless, if you were ready, walking away was still painful.
Debbie :Walking away was still painful, Absolutely, and the fact that it happened in September of 2020, I was it, it was it made it so much more. What should I say? Certain, I, you know, we all went on remote status back in March and for me, who had been commuting by train an hour and a half each way because I had the plan, hadn't quite gone to plan and so I had moved before I retired, which was not the plan, but I like to just share that, even though you're type A and you have plans, it's really good to also have some flexibility, and I started to learn and exercise that muscle that I don't think I'd had for most of my life. But it was one of these things where, when you see things coming to you and you see opportunities coming, maybe it's good to have a plan B or maybe a plan C or a plan D, but at least for me, I ended up moving away sooner than I had planned. But when we went on remote status, I thought, oh my gosh, now I'm living my best life, Except at the time, my internet was terrible and so trying to go to Teams, meetings with the camera and everything, I mean it was really awful.
Debbie :And so, again, I was really, really ready to go. And then I had my retirement party, which I'm using air quotes for right now because, of course, there were no such things in 2020. So I had gone back to the office to clean out my office and sitting in my office and everybody else is, you know, beaming in from wherever they were. And I have to tell you, Audra, it was remarkable and I'll never forget it, because typically at these things, you know, someone would speak my supervisor, the big boss, whoever I would say a few words and then everybody would just chit-chat and mingle and it would be, you know, nice, There'd be cake and whatever. But for this one we had, you know, the two or three people that were going to speak. And then, as I'm sure you're aware, when you're on a Teams meeting thing, if nobody speaks, there's nothing going on. And so what ended up happening is it almost became in my mind.
Debbie :I started to think, oh God, this is like a funeral, Because so then, little by little, people would just say these nice things about me and, oh my gosh, then I'm just weeping and you know, it's like, well, I haven't died, but it was. But it was really, you know, and I look back on that and I think, well, it would have been nice to have a party with a bunch of people to sit here and stare at screens of people that I hadn't seen, at least in, you know, six months, and some of them I hadn't seen in years. I mean, they were just from all parts of the office and they're saying these nice things, and it's one of these, it's one of these things where you go oh, I wasn't that bad, I guess you know. And again, it's this idea of how we see ourselves versus how others see us, and it's just anyway it was. It was one of those things where, Anyway, it was one of those things where, as you say, so then I had to drive the hour home and I'm sobbing because it's like, oh, my know, just kind of decompress, but it was like, OK, it's still COVID, I can't go anywhere for the holidays Time to get cracking on the book. And so it was.
Debbie :Again, I don't like to speak lightly of the pandemic, because I know that it just did a number on so many people and so many families, but for me it it afforded me an opportunity for uninterrupted writing and I've got good self-discipline and I just sat here every day and I hammered out, I hammered out, I hammered out and I just it was one of those things where it, for me, I think it was all meant to work out the way it did, because I got the book done, the first draft, and I thought to myself, well, is this just a one and done? Now what am I going to do? But what I realized is how much I love writing and I had written as a lawyer, you know court briefs, all that kind of thing, but this kind of writing, just it fills my soul in ways that I had never contemplated. And so it's like, well, I guess I'll just keep writing books as long as I can, and you know, whether I make any money off of it, that's a whole. That's remains to be seen. But again, to have a little bit of financial cushion, that I'm not, you know, I don't have to be concerned about that right now. I mean, check in with me in five years and we'll see.
Debbie :But again, it just it's the transition. For me it wasn't super tough, it wasn't super smooth either. I think it was. For me it was just right. It was because I have no regrets. I have no regrets of giving all that up leaving that job, and there was enough. There was enough pain to know that I was valued at my old job. So so, so that that's a good kind of pain. That's bittersweet, I guess we could call it.
Audra :Well, I mean, you attended your own wake. That was pretty weird. I mean, that was pretty odd, but, you know, affirming that you had value and that you were going to leave a hole, that you had value and that you were going to leave a hole. So that has merit, you know, in spite of it being weird, right, in spite of that. But I mean, my point is that you had to shed that old identity to become something else. Back to those. I have choices. I have all of these options.
Audra :You could have done a million different things. You could have stayed. You could have stayed and gotten your full pension, but that means you would have put off your writing career, you would have not discovered your true passion, your setting your soul on fire. Until what? 12 years later, you wouldn't have discovered that? Because you wouldn't have had the full capacity to write in that creative manner. Because, not that you're not writing, you're just writing in a very technical manner, whereas what you do right now comes from a very creative space, absolutely so you wouldn't have discovered that until much later. So there's, there's an exchange of that. And didn't you also mention that? Not only are you restoring your old farm house that you get to put your hands in the dirt, which there's something to be said for that that you, you get to put your hands in dirt every single day, which some people are like. That doesn't sound like fun to me. But that does sound like fun to me.
Audra :I do not know how to garden. I don't even know if I'm good at it. Quite honestly, I don't know if I could grow a thing, but I'd certainly like to try, because there's something to be said for getting your hands dirty and figuring out if you can grow something. That sounds really fun and fascinating to me. I don't even know if we could grow anything in Arizona. Surely we could. I mean, let's face it, there weren't always grocery stores here in Arizona. Surely there's something that could be grown here. So I'd certainly like to find out. Tell me what this there's got to be a spiritual aspect to growing something. So tell me what it's like to put your hands in dirt and grow stuff.
Debbie :Well, I have to say I took up gardening even when I lived in the city. I had this tiny little city backyard and it was so impractical because I've always had sporting breed dogs. So golden retriever, nova Scotia, duck, tooling retriever, lab, flat coat, I've kind of run through all the retrievers and a little backyard where I'm trying to grow flowers is a little bit ironic, inappropriate, you can pick the word, but there was always something about spring Once I started to learn about perennials. I just think perennials are fascinating because they, you know, here in Minnesota they die in the winter, so they die. We cut off all the dead stuff and then in the spring they come back, got into it and and I think it was a really nice compliment to my high stress job to just come home and sit with my flowers and pull weeds. I mean, as a type A, pulling weeds is a great opportunity to have some control over something. But and I've written, I've written several little blog pieces, newsletters about gardening and how it really can, it can try your patience and it you, you need to be persistent, you need to be optimistic because mother nature is going to do what she's going to do and and it's funny because this is the first year I grow a few vegetables. I've had a tendency to bite off more than I can chew because it's like, oh, I want to do this and I want to do this, and I want to do this and I want to do that. And that's been one of the things I've had to actually work on for the.
Debbie :It's now my fourth summer in quote unquote retirement, but I've had to really be more thoughtful about all the things that I feel like I want to do, because I can exhaust myself in no summer where I'm only planting a few things that I can manage and I've also. I go out and I look at everything every morning and I'm grateful that it's doing well, but I'm also mindful that a big storm could come through and just flatten everything. You have to have this ability and as a type A, it's not hard or not easy but to just let go of some of the control that we need to have around things and just just again getting through the summers and the winters, the change of seasons here. It's not been easy. There have been a lot of really frustrating and upsetting episodes, but yet I can sit here on a day like today when it's like 78 degrees and there's no humidity and there's a nice breeze and everything looks pretty and the monarch butterflies are coming out and landing on some of the plants that I've put in.
Debbie :It's like the greatest thing in the world. And so what I try to do is bottle up these days, because I know there will be dark days ahead. Things can happen, and if you have a good reserve of the good days that you can just sort of go back and think about and be grateful for, the good days that you can just sort of go back and think about and be grateful for, that's another thing. For me. Gratitude is such a huge part of my days, just looking at each day and just being grateful for the opportunities that are there.
Audra :I think you're giving me life lessons, not gardening lessons. These definitely sound like really good lessons for me to do on a daily basis, not learn how to plant stuff, because you're definitely talking about things to do on a daily basis. And that biting off more than you can chew, that is one of my favorite traits of mine. What would I do if I didn't bite off more than I chew? I'd do that on the regular. I mean, that is that is I often think. What would I do with myself if I had just enough to do? I would be so bored I have no idea what I would do. I would literally I don't know.
Debbie :I don't understand balance and this is something that people like us actually have to train for and I say train for like we would for a marathon or any other kind of thing that we're training for, because this is the first summer. My book launched last summer and I look back on that summer. It was great, but it was crazy. I had a launch party, I was traveling, I was doing book events and I started to think about last winter how I went from my high-stress job as a prosecutor to all the things around launching a book and I've given myself no breaks. I mean that's why I cannot call it retirement and I think it's important to not call it retirement, because I think we think of retirement as, oh, I'm just going to travel a lot or I'm going to sit around and watch the paint dry or whatever. There are some of us who cannot necessarily do that until we really make that effort and sort of think about what it means to do that, because I know people in my office who will work. They'll work into their 70s and I don't begrudge anybody who wants to work. If that is where you get your purpose and joy and fulfillment, have at it.
Debbie :We just lost a well-known criminal defense lawyer, and I believe he was 87. And he was still showing up in court because that's that was his thing. I mean, I always knew that being a lawyer was my way to make some money, but it wasn't how I defined myself and I think I think, as for people that are looking ahead towards we'll call it retirement, but the next chapter, one of the things I think is super important, is figure out. Figure out who you are and what you like, what you don't like, and if you are type A, I think that's where retirement sounds scary, because it's like oh my gosh, what am I going to do with my days If I'm not, if I'm not accomplishing something, if I'm not crossing off a to-do list?
Debbie :I'm going to be, you know, and and this is the first summer where I've been I've got the to-do list, but I also do this well, out and take pictures of the monarchs on the flowers. And oh my gosh, audra, I can just feel in my body the stress is finally starting to actually, and it's a good feeling. But it's different, because when you're so used to doing 800 trillion things, you look at yourself as though you're not measuring up. If you're not, you know, if you haven't done this and that and everything else all day. And again, I think for each of us it's different, like what brings to me. The questions are is it bringing me purpose, is it bringing me joy and and just finding those things every day? And and if I, if I don't do 12 things, it's going to be OK, because maybe I'll do them tomorrow, maybe I won't do them at all.
Audra :It sounds like your. Your book is what brought that full circle for you. Writing that not quite a memoir is what helped you get to that point, that part of your life, and realize that there's more to life than the hustle, than the achievement. The accomplishment and what next? Can I check off that list? Because you know, there's nothing more than I like better than check. Scratch that off my list. And I say that jokingly, but there's just so many that are listening that are exactly like that, that are like make a list, I'm checking that off, I've got that accomplished.
Audra :Moving on to the next, because that's just how we're wired. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just how we've become accustomed to it. It's just how we are and we come by it honestly, Many of us. That's just how we've survived, because we've got so many things that we're trying to get done that that's just how it's happened. I mean, especially if you're trying to juggle a job, children that are going in 85 different directions and a relationship, that's just how it is and that's how it's become and that's become normal. And then when that phase of life is over like I said, how we started, this conversation is based on choices and when you are becoming something else. The choices are now different, and that's what I love about what you wrote is that you get to choose and define and be the author of what's next. You just have to be thoughtful about it.
Debbie :Right, and one little piece that really really impacted me was my grandfather's story Because, as I mentioned, he was a highly successful doctor. He had become addicted to Demerol. He claimed to have been using it to treat his asthma. He had asthma. I did a lot of research about whether Demerol is a good idea for treating asthma. We'll set that aside for a minute.
Debbie :But what I learned about him when he went into this locked facility he would write these letters and his days were much like, I think, the days people fear about retirement. He didn't have much to do there. He had to get through the detox and then he was doing creative activities. I mean, he's 51 years old, he's in there with a bunch of much younger convicted federal prisoners, basically, and so he had to really get himself. He had to get that spring unwound a little bit and he was there for four months and he was learning new ways to manage the stress that had sort of. I think addiction can show itself in all sorts of ways, and I think workaholism can be its own addiction, especially if you're. You know you're going in on the weekends and you're working late nights and you're doing all these things and you're burning the candle at both and your health is suffering for it. He went right back to his old practice. He was always busy. We don't believe he ever relapsed, but his asthma continued to be an issue and he died at age 59.
Debbie :Really young, and I'm going to be 59 in September. And one of the things that really hit me hard as I was writing the book and trying to figure out what is the, what is the message, what is the legacy that my grandfather left me? Because I never knew him, I never. He died long before I was born and and when I think about how I feel now, at almost 59, I'm not ready to die, you know, not just yet. I have things to do.
Debbie :But I'm also very mindful that nothing's guaranteed. You know, we it's just, and I think when you get into middle age and you start moving through middle age, you're much more focused on that. I think when you're in your 20s and 30s, you're not, you're not concerned about any of that and think, when you're in your 20s and 30s, you're not concerned about any of that and especially if you're a parent, you're too busy making sure your kids are. You know, you're all about the kids, but I think that's the other thing, when we hit middle age, we start to think about okay, I don't know how much time I have left, and I think, knowing that my grandfather think, knowing that my grandfather had he just opted to take a little bit better care of himself and not work as hard, maybe he could have lived longer. I don't know, but I think there is there.
Debbie :He left a message. He left a message in his life. He did a lot of good things. He left a message in his life. He did a lot of good things. He died too young, in my opinion, and so to honor his legacy, I need to take good care of myself, and I and people are always thinking, you know, do I take my social security at 62 or do I wait all the way till 70? My philosophy is none of that's guaranteed, and so, you know, I don't. It's not like I think I'm going to die young, but I don't know. I would rather live each day to the max than worry about a future that may or may not be guaranteed. And so these are things I think about as well, and I think the book like you say, this book, writing this book, really it made me think about a lot of things in ways I had not thought about them previously.
Audra :Well, you've given us a lot to think about and a lot to consider and put some things in different perspective. For, I think, a lot of us, certainly for me, because thinking about choices and what's next, and all of that certainly isn't as overwhelming and as scary as I once thought, as I get to become what's next and I've got lots of company. That's. The good thing is that I've got lots and lots of company. The more I've been talking about this lately is because I used to hold this secret. I don't know why I used to keep this as a secret, but I started talking about it a little bit and then more. The more I talked about it, the more people wanted me to talk about it. So I've been talking about it more often and I realized that there's lots of women and men out there just like me that are going through this kind of stuff.
Audra :And it's it's the next chapter of life that, if you're lucky enough to get to it, you get to graduate to the next step. So it's you know, it's whatever's next, just let it unfold. And you got to write a book and document it and you get to live what's on the other side, which is so exciting. I mean, you're living a dream that you didn't think to dream of Five years ago. You didn't know to dream this Exactly, which I think is amazing. Where can they reach you if they want to know more about you or read your book?
Debbie :Well, my website is wwwdebbie-russellcom. Everything is on there, the book is on there. Dot com Everything is on there, the book is on there, media coverage, book club invitations, those kinds of things. My book is on Amazon, crossing 51, not quite a memoir, and it's done well and I just it's. I'm always excited to connect with readers who say, oh my gosh, you could have been writing about me, and I think what? Because I felt like I was as we talked before. I felt like I was so unique in my experience but turns out not so much.
Audra :So, yeah, so you'll do book club invitations. That's super cool, I love.
Debbie :I love doing book clubs. I have met so many women who can describe very similar circumstances.
Audra :It's amazing that has been one of the highlights of this book for me and there's a lot of you out there a lot, because we all, like I said, I know my people, we all love these books. Hit her up, go take her book, go get her book and then invite her to your book clubs. Come on, guys, she's like invite me, hang out with her. I love to chat. Exactly, debbie. Thank you so much for being here. This has been a lovely delight to get to know you and to get to know a little bit more about your story and that, once again, we're way more similar than we are different. Even though we have different backgrounds, we have different experiences, we're all going through pretty much similar stuff. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you, audra, it was a real pleasure. Thank you once again, and I want to thank all of you for joining me again today. We'll see you again next time.
