{"id":4507,"date":"2025-04-20T15:58:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T19:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=4507"},"modified":"2025-04-21T08:16:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T12:16:51","slug":"judy-goldman-reflects-on-the-stages-of-life-in-her-new-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2025\/04\/20\/judy-goldman-reflects-on-the-stages-of-life-in-her-new-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"Judy Goldman Reflects on the Stages of Life in Her New Memoir\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Rest of Our Lives, <\/em>Judy Goldman\u2019s new memoir, grew out of Judy\u2019s response to turning eighty, but it is not really an account of the trials and tribulations of being an older person in contemporary America. Instead, Judy focuses The Rest of Our Lives <\/em>on the many connections between her past experiences and her current life. As she stated in a recent interview, \u201cLife is simply a series of passages where you find yourself in new, uncharted territory. You can almost connect the dots, see how that final stage of life is similar to all the previous stages.\u201d  By focusing on the ways in which her past and her present experiences interrelate, Judy shows how key moments in her life have prepared her to face the challenges associated with old age.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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In many ways, however, The Rest of Our Lives, <\/em>is not limited to the particularities of Judy\u2019s life.  If it were, the book would not include the words \u201cour lives\u201d in the title.  Judy\u2019s new memoir provides all readers with insights on navigating the life passages that we all face as we age. Throughout her memoir, Judy invites readers to reflect on the meaning of their own experiences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Given Judy\u2019s interest in writing a book that relates to all of \u201cour lives,\u201d it is not surprising that the book is tied to her experiences as a writing teacher at Charlotte Lit and elsewhere.\u00a0\u00a0When commenting on how she came to write\u00a0The Rest of Our Lives<\/em>, she specifically mentions how working with her students inspired her to write this memoir:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 80, I felt I\u2019d written everything I had to write. What was left? I was sad to give up writing. Writing keeps me nice. If I\u2019m not writing, you don\u2019t want to be around me. But then it came to me: If I tell students in my memoir workshops, \u201cWrite about what keeps you up at night,\u201d I need to take my own advice. I was thinking a lot about aging. I needed to write about it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official launch of Judy\u2019s The Rest of Our Lives <\/em>will take place at Park Road Books on May 6 at 7:00 pm. For more information about this free event, please click on this link: https:\/\/www.parkroadbooks.com\/event\/judy-goldman-discusses-her-new-book-rest-our-lives<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information about Judy and her books, please click on the following link:  http:\/\/judygoldman.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In thinking about Judy\u2019s The Rest of Our Lives, <\/em>I am reminded of Erik Erikson\u2019s \u201cEight Ages of Man\u201d chapter from his book Childhood and Society. <\/em>In this chapter, Erikson writes about the \u201clife cycle\u201d and the road to becoming \u201ca mature adult.\u201d In Erikson\u2019s model, mature adults who achieve \u201cego integrity\u201d during their late adulthood find meaning and satisfaction in their lives, and often become known for their general \u201cwisdom.\u201d In pre-industrial societies, people would often turn to their village elders for wise advice on dealing with life\u2019s challenges. Well, Storied Charlotte is a far cry of a pre-industrial village, but we still have our own wise village elder, and her name is Judy Goldman. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rest of Our Lives, Judy Goldman\u2019s new memoir, grew out of Judy\u2019s response to turning eighty, but it is not really an account of the trials and tribulations of being an older person in contemporary America. Instead, Judy focuses The Rest of Our Lives on the many connections between her past experiences and her current life. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[307],"class_list":["post-4507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte","tag-judy-goldman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4512,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4507\/revisions\/4512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}