Divorced many decades ago, my friend Z is really excited that at her age, beyond what others might call mid-life, she has finally met a man she wants to spend the rest of her decades with.

They’ve been together now for a bit over a year. Recently, he needed surgery.  She went through the surgery, recovery, and rehab with him.  The recovery, though, has been and will continue to be slow.  He requires three times a week rehab as well as weekly doctor appointments.  For the first few months, she willingly did this.

Last week, though, Z told him he needed to drive himself to these appointments.  She felt badly doing that, hoping he wouldn’t feel resentful.  But, her concern was she didn’t want to feel resentful.  She was giving up a lot of her life in caretaking him.  She loves him and wants o do some, but not to the extent of letting go of her own life. If she did not, she worried her resentment might end up ruining her relationship.

I emailed her last week, saying this is a great example of a woman speaking up, taking care of her own needs.  Women so often are afraid of doing that, fearing they will seem uncaring, selfish, mean.

Z wrote back, saying, “I think that is my number one lesson in this relationship --learning to speak up, but doing it appropriately.”

This is a wonderful message for single women – and married women.  We need to be clearer about stating our own needs, and we need to rethink the misused word “selfish.”   After all, selfish, according to Webster(remember when we used dictionaries?) selfish is a combination of “about self”and the prefix, “ish” meaning about. So, selfish really means “about self.”

And, if you are not taking care of your self, who will be?

Thank you, Z, for reminding all of us women we need to be caring, loving – to those we love as well as to ourselves.