5. The Curveball with Amy Harkness
“In all of this...I’ve been trying to figure out...how much of it is my age and my body getting older and how much of it is some other issue going on? ”
Today on Messy Middlescence, we talk with Amy (Conti) Harkness who shares her experience as a medical librarian and mother of four children. Amy discusses her health struggles during middlescence and the frustration of not being taken seriously by doctors. She questions how much of her changing body is due to normal aging and how much is a sign of an underlying issue. Amy also reflects on the impact of menopause and the unexpected symptoms she has encountered post menopause. She talks about her journey in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and the challenges she faces in balancing exercise and self-care. Despite the difficulties, Amy remains optimistic and emphasizes the importance of finding joy and fulfillment in this stage of life.
Some of the highlights from this episode are:
The term "happy social work" to describe the work Amy does and wants to do.
Amy likes her job because it is not very stressful and therefore leaves her the ability and emotional resources to take care of her family and household.
Amy does not think of herself as the age she is. She thinks of herself as younger and that can be hard because her body cannot do what she expects it to do.
She hopes to retire in about five years when her youngest child will graduate from high school.
Her health issues are affecting her happiness.
The hardest time of her life was after her divorce with a 1-year-old and trying to figure out what she wanted to do.
In 2019 she started having heart palpitations. She thinks they may have been related to menopause. She had different physical issues that no one could explain. No one mentioned menopause.
How no one seems to talk about post menopause.
She is exercising less and is not able to do what she used to do. She is trying to figure out if it is normal aging or is there some other issue(s) going on.
She started exercising regularly again around age 50. She loved doing CrossFit with some of her neighbors and then started swimming competitively and running.
What is most important to her and her legacy is focusing on her children and making sure they have what they need.
How hormone replacement got a bad rap.
She knows she wants to be more involved in her next phase. She is looking forward to having the freedom to do what they want and travel where they want.
We loved the advice she would give to her younger self - to loosen up, go with the flow, don't sweat the small stuff and live a little more. Great advice for most of us!
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[00:22] Christina Donovan: Are you between the ages of 40 and 60? Do you feel the need for change in your life but are not sure why or when or how? Do you feel a pressure of running out of time? Do you spend most of your time doing things that are not important to you anymore? These are all symptoms or characteristics of middlescence. And this is our podcast, messy Middlescence.
[00:50] Tara Bansal: Today we have Amy Conti Harkness on messy middle essence. She's the oldest of the seven Conti siblings and a mother of four children ranging in age from 31 to 13. Amy currently works remotely as a medical librarian in Columbus, Georgia. This interview was recorded back in June. Amy's biggest struggle right now during middleescence is her health and how her body isn't able to do what she wants it to do. She's struggling with getting answers to why she doesn't feel well. Unfortunately, she has continued not to feel well since June and she's still frustrated with doctors telling her everything is fine. She's working hard to try to get some answers and continue to get tests and research for what's going on. One of the questions she brings up is how much of our changing bodies is normal and due to aging versus knowing something that's not right. I think most of us can relate to this. I love Amy's term of happy social work and we touch on menopause, which we know we'll be discussing in the future, but it comes up as a topic here and she even talks about the Facebook ads that seem to know what all of us middle aged women are thinking and desiring with regards to our bodies. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did. Thank you.
[02:21] Amy Harkness: Welcome.
[02:22] Tara Bansal: This is Tara Bansel with Christina Donovan on Messy Middle essence and we are super excited to have as our guest today Amy Harkness. She is the oldest of all the siblings in the Conti family. We're just excited to have you here, Amy, and thanks for being open to doing this.
[02:46] Amy Harkness: My pleasure. I'm looking forward to it.
[02:48] Christina Donovan: Yeah, welcome, Amy.
[02:50] Amy Harkness: Thanks. Thanks for having me.
[02:52] Tara Bansal: So besides being our oldest sibling and sister, what would you like people to know about you? Or, I don't know if you've listened to Brene Brown? Like, what's your story?
[03:04] Amy Harkness: I'm a mom to four kids wide age range from 31 to 13. I've got two degrees, a master's in public health and master's in library science. I currently work for Piedmont Hospital out of Atlanta, Georgia and Northside Gwinnett, also out of Atlanta. I work remotely, have been for the last almost ten years now. So it bode well when Covid hit that I was able to not have to really adjust my job and it worked well with my kids and their schedule. I've been married to Alan Harkness now for 20 something years and we live in Columbus, Georgia, have been down here ten years. Prior to that we lived up in the Atlanta area for about, well, I guess twelve years. We were married when we first got married. So that's kind of me in a nutshell, I guess. Yeah.
[04:16] Tara Bansal: What are some of your favorite things to do?
[04:19] Amy Harkness: I love to read and I've gotten back into exercising over the last seven, eight years. So swimming, running. I did crossfit for a while, needlepoint, when I have time for it, cross stitch and I don't know, I guess that's probably about it.
[04:44] Tara Bansal: Before just you have two masters. How did you choose what to study and any additional background on your education or.
[04:57] Amy Harkness: You know, I went into college thinking I knew what I wanted to do. Wanted to be a geology major. That was going to be fun. Went to a little school up in Erie, Pennsylvania, Mercy, Hearst College. Found that being at that small of a school didn't bode well. The department wasn't progressing. So I decided, well, maybe I'll look at education. Then I decided I'll go to a different school and really give geology a try. So I went down to College of Worcester. Did not like it, knew geology was not my thing. So ended up at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and ended up getting a double major in English and sociology. Obviously I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I liked lots of different things and I actually specialized in gerontology within my sociology major and ended up after graduating from college, getting married to my first husband and moving to Columbus, Ohio, where I worked in a nursing home, which know a challenge. I was basically a social worker, case worker in the nursing home. But I kind of felt like it was using my sociology degree. Long story short, he was in the Marine Corps, moved around a little bit, had a baby, got divorced, didn't know what I wanted to do. But I figured I'd go back to school and I decided I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. So I actually, I think, got a job at the public library in Atlanta, Georgia, where I was living and loved it and realized, oh, I want to be a librarian. So I went and got, oh no, I'm sorry. Actually when I moved to Atlanta I wanted to go to get a graduate degree. So I got a master's in public health, thinking maybe I could do something further in nursing homes. Got it at Emory University and was. And while I was doing that, that's when I was working at the library and decided, I know I want to be a librarian. Anyway, I got my library degree and ended up working at the CDC for a while as a information specialist, working on their website, answering reference questions. I liked it because it was combining both my degrees, but then, you know, I really want to be working in an actual library. So that's how I got my job at Piedmont Hospital. They had a medical library, and so I worked in their library. Well, I still do, but in their physical library till about, I guess, 1512 years ago, just before I went virtual. So it was kind of a long way around to what I like to do. But ironically, when I was little, I was always going to be a librarian, so I kind of worked my way back. If I just listened to myself when I was little, I might have saved myself some steps.
[08:11] Tara Bansal: I think there's some lessons in that. I mean, as a life coach, we often ask, what did you love to do when you were little without all these preconceived expectations or whatever, of just what naturally did you enjoy go towards that?
[08:33] Amy Harkness: When I got out of college, I also thought about going to nursing school. I loved helping people. I had a job for a little while when we were at Quantico, when I was married to my first husband, Mike, and I worked as an information specialist. And what you did know, you'd have military members call in who needed help in finding a clinic, know they were new to an area and get them into resources that they could use. So that kind of. I liked it. The nursing home was good, but it was very hard to do. I got burned out, so I knew I didn't want to stay in social work per se. And the library, to me, I always called it happy social work because you would have people come up to you, oh, I'm looking for information on such and such. You'd show them where it is, and they'd go off happy, and you were able to help them. You didn't have a lot of emotional investment in it.
[09:38] Tara Bansal: I love that. But what was important to you was helping people, and you felt comfortable, like, finding resources or finding solutions for people in need.
[09:48] Amy Harkness: Yeah. Now I do that for doctors and nurses. I do research for them. I get them articles, help them link up to stuff they need. Do you like your job? I do. I really like being in a medical library because it's a smaller environment. We had a nice small group of people. I like the variety. I could be cataloging books. I could be working on journals, doing reference questions for people. So I like the variety in it. When I transitioned to working remotely, and Piedmont Hospital got rid of their physical library, and so that was know not having the actual library, which is what I loved. But I also started working at Gwinnett because I worked part time to stay home with the kids, and Gwinnett still had their library, so I got my fix us through going there once a month, once I went remote. I like my job because it's not very stressful. It leaves me the ability to have the emotional resources that I need to take care of the family and run the household. I can set my own time, which is nice. It's not a power job, it's not a job in it for money, but it keeps me busy, and I haven't been bored yet, so figure that's a good sign.
[11:34] Tara Bansal: Many hours a week generally. Do you work?
[11:36] Amy Harkness: I work 16 hours for Piedmont and 8 hours for Gwinnett. About that. And typically I don't have to let them know necessarily when you know, usually because it's all done through email and stuff, as long as I get it done in the time frame that the docs need. I do go up to Gwinnett once a month since they have a physical library, and so I take care of the print materials up there, weeding and buying new books and cataloging them.
[12:14] Christina Donovan: Would you mind telling everyone, Amy, how old you are?
[12:19] Amy Harkness: I just turned 57. It still seems weird to think that I'm 57. I think mentally, I think I'm still younger. I guess I don't really put an age to the number, if that makes sense. And sometimes I think that's a detriment because I think I should be able to do all these things that I used to, and I'm having to really look myself in the eye and say, yeah, no, you're not going to knock down your five k time much more. Probably it's going to go up. There are things like that.
[13:06] Christina Donovan: Do you have a sense of how much longer you want to work?
[13:12] Amy Harkness: I think as long as we're in Columbus and the work situation, as long as the two hospitals still want me, I'll probably work for at least another five or six years. Alan can retire anytime. Essentially, he wants now because he's put in 40 years, but we have to really wait till Quinn gets through high school. So we're looking at probably another five years before we're looking at where we might go or retire to if we move out of here. So yeah, for sure, another five years. My thing is, so if we move someplace else, would I want to get another part time job or do something like that? But I haven't really thought beyond that.
[14:08] Tara Bansal: If you work remote, you could almost keep doing it if you.
[14:11] Amy Harkness: Yeah, I know, and that's, yeah, and that's the other. They might, I know that there are some people that work for Piedmont that live over in South Carolina, so they might let me stay on and I might. It depends on, I guess, what Alan's going to be doing and what we want to do in retirement.
[14:26] Tara Bansal: On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your happiness right now?
[14:35] Amy Harkness: Probably say seven to eight.
[14:42] Tara Bansal: And I guess why would you give it that number? Like, what's some of the good or some of the bad?
[14:49] Amy Harkness: I think the good is I'm really happy with where we live. I like the community we're in, the people that I know, the social stuff that I get to do. I feel like it's a good place for my kids, which makes me feel less stressed. I think the biggest issue for me is grappling with health issues right now. I think that's why I'm not quite as happy, but, yeah, other than that, financially we're fine. I don't have to worry about anything like that right now. You know, there's kid issues sometimes, but yeah, for the most part, probably eight.
[15:44] Christina Donovan: How would you say this compares to other periods of your life?
[15:51] Amy Harkness: I think it's much easier now that the kids are older and we're in a location where traffic isn't an issue, commuting is not an issue. This has been a really good spot. I've gotten more involved in the last ten years since we've lived here in Columbus, and I've really liked that more than I thought I would. Things just seemed easier.
[16:24] Christina Donovan: So you would say generally this is a very happy period of your life.
[16:29] Amy Harkness: Yes.
[16:30] Christina Donovan: Or one of the happiest.
[16:31] Amy Harkness: Yeah, I think so. I feel kind of like I have less stress, but I think it's different stressors and that they're just not as overwhelming as they may have been when I was younger. Juggling a lot more.
[16:46] Tara Bansal: What comes to mind for, like, if you're willing to share one of the hardest times of your life for you?
[16:55] Amy Harkness: Probably when my first marriage was hard and not good, and then I got pregnant and then we got divorced when Eric was a year old, basically. So I was left on my own trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Thank goodness. I had my mom and dad, who were so supportive and really helped get me through it. But it was hard trying to figure out what I was going to be doing because my life had transitioned. I assumed, oh, you know what? I'm military wife. I'm going to have a baby. I'll support my husband. We'll move around. And then all of a sudden, that changed. And dealing with the issues of divorce and raising a kid on your own was hard. And then I was going to school and working at the same time, too, so it was a lot to deal.
[18:00] Tara Bansal: With and even financially.
[18:02] Amy Harkness: Like, what you had expected and thought changed drastically, too. Yeah, exactly.
[18:10] Christina Donovan: What would you say some of the challenges have been in the last ten years for you?
[18:17] Amy Harkness: The last ten years? And that's kind of like since we moved here to Columbus.
[18:25] Tara Bansal: You were 47. Just like, for, you know, to put.
[18:27] Amy Harkness: It in a right about when I was 47. Well, I guess I was closer to 50, was when I started exercising again. I got into CrossFit, which I loved. It made me feel so good. And then I added swimming, and I was running off and on through that time period, but that really made me feel good. And probably, I think the biggest thing has been my physical changes, my health changes more than anything. That has been a challenge and has bothered me the most.
[19:12] Tara Bansal: What are you willing to share around that?
[19:15] Amy Harkness: Well, kind of like coming from that librarian standpoint, researcher, I want to understand. I want to know, why is this happening? Why am I having this issue? And also with a history in mom's family of heart diseases, heart conditions, I always am very nervous about that. So I started having heart palpitations, gosh, in 20. Well, it was 2019, and it really bothered me, and I was not really thinking about menopause at that point. And so I know this sticks in my mind because they ended up sending me to the cardiologist, and they did one of those two week heart monitor things because it happened just before the shutdown in 2020. It was February that I had it, and in March, it was shut down. And I just had different physical issues that were bothering me, and no one could pinpoint what they were. No one mentioned menopause at that point. I guess, for me, menopause was almost done at that point, and I was really happy because I didn't have what I thought a lot of the symptoms. I would have a hot flash that went through. That was fine. I never had huge night sweats. It didn't seem that bad to me. And then when my cycle stopped, boom. Okay, that was great. And what I think I didn't realize is there's post menopause, and I think that's kind of what I've been dealing with. So when I was on the heart thing, they said, you're fine. There's no issues. Okay.
[21:27] Tara Bansal: They didn't see any heart palpitations. And did you feel like you had any during that time?
[21:32] Amy Harkness: Not really, no. And that was the thing, too. I just wanted to know. Yeah. But I do think, looking back, that that may have been part of the menopause issue that I was having, especially in 2019, because I'd had them off and on in 2019. And then they finally decided to do the heart monitor, but I do think that was from menopause. And then since then, they found that I've had some. I don't know if it's kidney issues, but I've got lab work that came back really not really high, just a little high. And so my doctor sent me to a rheumatologist, and dad's side of the family has autoimmune issues, Aunt Liz has Wegner's, and dad has gout. And so I was like, okay, well, I'll stay with rheumatologist to monitor it. And then last summer, the rheumatologist called, stop taking Advil. Your kidney lab work is not good. I'm going to send you to a renal doctor. So I'm like, okay. I don't feel like I'm having major issues. So I went to the nephrologist. Not last, I guess it was two years ago. Sorry, two years ago. And nephrologist was like, well, just drink a lot more water. I think you're dehydrated. You work out a lot. You need to drink more than you think. I'm like, okay. And I went back. He's like, yeah, you went from stage three to stage two. You're fine for kidney disease. So I get frustrated with. And then I start getting more symptoms of body aches. And they put me on a statin because of my cholesterol levels. They felt, you're working out so much, your eating is pretty decent. You should have better cholesterol than this. So they put me on statins. I'm right now trying to figure out if the statins is what's making me feel a lot worse. I kind of go through these different cycles. In all of this, I've been exercising less, not able to do what I used to do, and I've been trying to figure out if it's just age. How much of it is my age and my body getting older and how much of it is some other issue going on?
[23:58] Tara Bansal: It is just normal, right?
[24:03] Amy Harkness: Because as a medical librarian, I tend to read probably more than I should, and then it's like, oh, well, maybe I have this or maybe I have that, and I try and temper it, but it's still really hard. And so for me, even mentally trying to grasp all this, I think this is the thing that stresses me out the most and the thing that has put a paw over anything I do right now. I was swimming competitively, and then I can swim, but not like I was before, and I want to know, why can't I do it like I did before? There's got to be something wrong with me if I can't do it the way I was doing it before. I talked to some of my other swimmer friends who are older than I were. I am. And they're like, yeah, every year I swim a little slower, and that's just the way it is. So I'm trying to acknowledge that, yes, some of this is probably just my age and stage, but it's really hard for me to be accepting that and still not be afraid that there's some other issue in my body.
[25:15] Tara Bansal: Would you say your physical symptoms affect you every day, or is it more the stress and worry about how you feel?
[25:25] Amy Harkness: That's a good question. It could be both. Yeah, I think it's both. There are days when I'll feel really great. I'm like, holy smokes. I didn't realize how bad I was feeling until I'm feeling better. And I think I'm trying not to let it bother me every day, but it probably does. And I've been doing, since the fall, doing meditation. I started doing yoga. I felt like it was helping sometimes, but I keep doing it, and sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn't.
[26:13] Tara Bansal: What motivated you to start working out when you joined or started?
[26:22] Amy Harkness: It was funny. I was feeling like I needed to exercise. I was just feeling kind of bad. And I've also found when I gain weight, I have more back issues. And so I had gained some weight and I wanted to lose it. And our neighbor across the street was going to crossfit at the high school. The principal over there had a groupie that did it in the morning, and our neighbors are all teachers over there, so they invited me to join them. So I'm like, sure, I'll try it. And it was so challenging but so fun. And I enjoyed doing it with people. I was comfortable with. It wasn't a real gym. It was just six to eight of us that got to know, and I really liked it, and it made me feel really good, and my body felt so nice. And then when the Emily started swimming and actually quinn started swimming, he was taking lessons at the local indoor pool, and I would sit and watch them, and I decided, you know what? Rather than just sit here, I'd like to get in the water. So I just started because it was a big pool and they had the public portion, so I would go and I would swim when they were practicing, and it just felt really nice. And then the swim coach there approached me and said, we've got a master's program. You should join. So I was like, okay. And they were really great about encouraging. There's about five or six of us, but encouraging us didn't matter what your level was. They didn't judge you. They encouraged us to go to the master swim meets. And that was really so neat. You see some of these people that are 80 years old swimming in a race, and it's like, I want to be able to do that when I'm 80. And so it was nice. I feel like I had a better handle on exercising and even competing than I did when I was younger. I guess maybe the age and stage and not having super high expectations about it made it more fun and relaxing.
[28:46] Christina Donovan: And also probably being a spectator for a long time, I think, changes your perspective when you watch other people compete like your kids know. I think it changes how you view.
[29:00] Amy Harkness: It in a good way. Yeah, I think you're right. I hadn't done much running at all. But the nice thing about Columbus, they have five k races all the time, and they had one that it was a midnight run. It was right literally here in our section of the neighborhood done by a restaurant. And our neighbors were doing it, and they're like, why'd you guys do it? So as a family, we did it, and we weren't sure if we could run the whole thing, but we did, and this is really kind of fun. So I started running as well and doing these five k races. Al and I would go and do a couple of races on our own, and it was nice. There weren't as many people in my age group, so sometimes I would actually place. We have a ten k race at Callaway, where you run through the fantasy of lights in December. And that was a big goal, was to be able to run that 6.3 miles without stopping. And Alan and I, that was the thing we worked on together and we did it. And so it was fun to do something like that as a family or as a couple.
[30:22] Tara Bansal: Yeah, that sounds great.
[30:25] Christina Donovan: I mean, what would you say right now is most important to you?
[30:33] Amy Harkness: For me, it's making sure that my kids get through high school and college without any major issues. Covid threw a spin, know, especially how my youngest, Quinn, handles trying. And he's got that little brother syndrome. So I'm really trying to make sure that he's getting what he needs and making sure that Ian works to the best of his know. And Emily in college, she's got issues, too, that we're trying to make sure that she's happy and where she wants to be. I guess my focus is still my kids right now. What do you want?
[31:29] Tara Bansal: What are some of the changes that you're in or you're looking forward to?
[31:36] Amy Harkness: One of the things, know, Alan has always wanted to travel and I've always put it off just because for me, logistically trying to find babysitters for the kids and taking care of their schedule, I'm like, it's not going to be any fun for me to travel because it just is too much work and stress. So now we're at the point with the kids where, yeah, we can do some traveling. I think starting this next year we'll be able to do more traveling. So, yeah, I think I'm looking forward to that. Looking forward.
[32:17] Christina Donovan: Sorry, what kind of trips do you think? Are you interested in international travel or relaxing travel?
[32:27] Amy Harkness: I always like the relaxing travel. I'm happy to go to the beach for a week, take my shoes off when I get there and don't step into them. The whole know, I don't go anywhere. Alan likes more of the busy travel and we do that a lot with the kids. We go to different cities and we go, go. And I like that I can do it. It just takes a while for me to recuperate from that. But I think for us, we want to look at doing international travel. I would love to do like a viking cruise. There's another thing they have now. It's geared towards older adults, but it's like hiking trips and I'd like to do things like that. Some outdoor trips would be nice. So, yeah, just all kinds of different things. I know we'll plan on taking the kids overseas at some point as well. And we want to take them out west. These are things we haven't done with them yet that we will, but we'll look at doing some trips with just the two of us, it'd be cheaper and we can do some different things.
[33:41] Tara Bansal: It sounds like right now your health is your biggest negative or.
[33:49] Christina Donovan: Challenge challenge.
[33:51] Tara Bansal: That you're working on, I guess. What are you doing to work on that or what do you think makes the most sense or wish you could do? I don't know if it's.
[34:01] Amy Harkness: Yeah. I scaled back my exercising, but I'm still doing it. I'm trying to exercise every other day instead of every day. The other thing I started, one of my new year's resolutions was, all right, I'm going to make sure I drink 80 to 100oz of water a day since that's what the guy told me the nephrologist told me to do, which I hadn't done completely, but I got one of those measured water bottles, and it has helped to make sure I'm drinking the water I need to. And so my lab work came back really good in the spring, and so I do feel that, okay, you know what? That's something that I'm doing that's working. Still trying to eat a little better. I think one of the things that frustrate me is that, I guess, since COVID I probably gained about ten pounds, and part of that was because I wasn't working out as much. So I'm trying to find a balance of making sure I'm eating correctly and not eating too much, and I'd like to lose just a few pounds, and it's not working.
[35:26] Tara Bansal: I think part of that is just normal and age.
[35:30] Christina Donovan: Menopause, I think, plays a role, too.
[35:34] Amy Harkness: Yeah, that's what I've heard that a lot. Your metabolism changes and things change, so that may be part of it that's a little frustrating. I keep going to the doctors. I'm at the point, in fact, because I'm kind of having another bad episode this last month or so. And in fact, my rheumatologist was great in the fall when I had kind of this episode, I didn't go to him. He said, next time, call me, we'll do blood work, and we'll see if it's an autoimmune issue. So I did, and he had me do blood work, and he's like, oh, looks fine, you're fine. So I was a little frustrated, and there are some things that have come up in that blood work that kind of bothered not in this work, but has come up in the past that's kind of bothered me. I'm afraid we're not following up on. So I've got to check with him and say, okay, I think I want to have these specific lab tests done. One of the things that came up was there's a thing called an m spike, and it's a protein that had come up abnormal way back when. And so it can be indicative of something called mgus, which is a monoclonal gamopathy, kind of like a precursor to possible blood cancer type issues. A lot of people get it. Like, my colleague has it, and she's been ten years. It's never developed into it. But I've been having so many issues that I'm starting to think, well, maybe we haven't looked at this in a couple of years. We need to look at this as something that might be rearing its head. And he doesn't seem as concerned as I would want him to be. So I'm finding that I think I have to be a little more proactive in asking more questions about it. I just kind of feel like my doctors are not, like, you're fine, don't worry about it. I want more than that. So I've got to figure out. That's the other area I've got to figure out how to improve on, I think.
[37:54] Christina Donovan: Yeah, communication with doctors. I mean, have your health issues changed the way you look at your next decade, like your 60s, maybe, versus your 50s, since things tend to not get better?
[38:12] Amy Harkness: Yeah, you know what? I hadn't really thought that way. I guess it sort of me feels like for the last year, I've been having these issues off and on, and I'm so focused on just wanting to find out what they are and what I can do to alleviate them. And that's my thing. If they do all the blood work under the world and there's nothing there, then okay, you know what? I can live with how I feel. I just want to make sure there's not something you're not leaving.
[38:44] Christina Donovan: Something that ten years from now you're going to say, why didn't they find this? It creates a bigger problem.
[38:50] Amy Harkness: Yeah, that's my thing. I do see myself continuing to exercise. I really feel like that's become an important part of my life and making me feel good. So I plan on, no matter what's happening, do something. As I said, even if it's minimizing it more and more, I plan on figuring out if it's just walking. That's what I'll. Yeah, well, they say that's one of.
[39:18] Christina Donovan: The best things you can do. Have you done any reading about health issues after or during menopause?
[39:29] Amy Harkness: I have. And that's my other thing, is that it could be that what I'm going through is just postmenopausal stuff. One thing that drives me crazy, I'm on Facebook and you'll get these things that as you scroll by, and it's almost like they know what you're thinking and talking know. I get a lot about postmenopausal issues. Oh, I took this supplement and it changed the world for me. And people have someone in the ad right there saying, my doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me for the longest time. And I went to this place and got these supplements, and now that's all it was, this post mental stuff, postmenopausal stuff. And I think, well, maybe that's just what it is. So again, I read about all this stuff and it's like, well, I've been reading it more on the hormone replacement therapy because a lot of indications say that really does help people who have issues, and it can help even with your heart, issues that can develop after. And I've come to find out how. Yeah, you know what? They really have given that a *** rap. There are people that should be able to be on it that just. They did a blanketed, no, this is.
[41:05] Christina Donovan: Not good for anybody.
[41:07] Amy Harkness: And they're finding out, and it's funny because just even in this last couple of months, they've really been discussing it more and promoting how, yeah, it's not as bad as you think. And I've almost. Sometimes they say you can take it up to three to five years after menopause, and I think, well, maybe I should look into that. I'm right at the end of it, though.
[41:33] Christina Donovan: You need to start seeing your windows closing.
[41:37] Amy Harkness: Yeah, it's a little frustrating.
[41:42] Christina Donovan: I mean, do you think about what kind of a legacy you want to leave behind or if you want to leave a legacy behind? I mean, some people, it's not important.
[41:58] Amy Harkness: Yeah, I guess I never really thought about it. I guess my goal has been. I guess my legacy would be my kids. Yeah. To make sure that they feel that I've given them everything they could out of life and that they're set for where they need to be. I think I worry most about not getting a chance to finish that with.
[42:23] Christina Donovan: Quit, particularly your youngest.
[42:25] Amy Harkness: Yeah, I guess I would consider that my legacy. Yeah.
[42:32] Christina Donovan: That's, I think, very honorable. If money and time weren't issues, how do you think you'd want to spend your time after your kids are, once you're an empty nester?
[42:44] Amy Harkness: Yeah. Gosh I would want to spend, I would love to have a place at the beach and spend part of my years at the beach, part of a year at a beach and travel. Of course, it would depend on where my kids are, too. That's one of the thing we talk about where would we retire to? And it's kind of like, well, maybe we should wait and see where our kids know so we could still be a part of their lives. But I know that's hard to. But.
[43:25] Christina Donovan: Do you feel like you and Alan are generally on the same page in terms of how you envision retirement or your empty nest years?
[43:39] Amy Harkness: I don't know. Alan is thinking about it a lot more than me at this point. I think because it's going to be a bigger change for him because he's got this huge job. Both of us know we want to be doing things. I see a number of people in our community who are retired, who have money isn't an issue. And they're on the orchestra board. They help do different things. And I kind of feel like if I had the time to put into that, I would enjoy doing mean in some levels. I've been doing that with PTA. I've been on the swim board. I'm actually going to be on the orchestra board this year as apparently aison. But when you're having so many other things to do, sometimes it can be not as enjoyable because you can't give it what you really want to or doing something part time. But I think both of us want to have the freedom to go where we want and travel when we want. Once we're retired, Alan always worries about the big picture money wise, and I tend to not think about that. I kind of like we'll have enough money, we'll figure it out. So he stresses more, know, are we going to downsize? Where are we going to go? Know I said I'd be probably happy just staying in Columbus. We're already established here. I like where we can exercise the things that we can do, but we'll see we've got at least five more years before that anything would happen.
[45:41] Christina Donovan: I was just going to say five years is a pretty long think.
[45:45] Amy Harkness: That's what I feel. But Alan doesn't feel like, well, we need to can.
[45:53] Christina Donovan: Well, I think the thing mean you have five years till he graduates high school, but assuming that he may take a gap year, he may go to college. It's not like he all of a sudden graduates high school and.
[46:12] Amy Harkness: We'Ll have more free time. We won't have the responsibility of day to day responsibility of him at that point. Without Ian gone this week, it has been really kind of like a little clue as to what it'll be like when he's gone into just once. Yeah. And Quinn at that point will be know he'll be more on his own, too. So I do kind of feel like it's a nice, gradual way to get to empty nest now, Ian, he goes off and does his own stuff. He drives himself. So I'm letting myself go. Yeah.
[46:56] Christina Donovan: So would you say empty nest is something that you look forward to or you realize will be bittersweet or you're kind of dreading?
[47:05] Amy Harkness: I'm not dreading it. So I think it's more I'm looking forward to it, but it'll be bittersweet because it means my kids aren't around for me to worry about or hound what am I going to do with my time? But, yeah, I'm looking forward to the freedom and less stress of worrying about them, hopefully.
[47:27] Christina Donovan: Do you have any advice you would give your younger self?
[47:33] Amy Harkness: When I was younger, I was always not maybe, I don't know if **** is the word, but I'd be very straight laced and rigid. And once I had kids, had to loosen up, and it made life while life was more chaotic. It enabled me to go with the flow a little more and be more flexible, and I think that's helped in dealing with people and relationships. I think to my younger self, I'd say, don't sweat the small stuff so much. Just trust yourself and enjoy. Live a little more.
[48:19] Christina Donovan: Relax a little bit more.
[48:21] Amy Harkness: Yeah.
[48:23] Christina Donovan: And I guess I think we're nearing the end of our questions. I guess the one thing I would ask at this point is, had you heard of the term middleescence before we interviewed you?
[48:40] Amy Harkness: No, I had not.
[48:42] Christina Donovan: And when you hear that term, does it resonate at all with the stage you're in in your life?
[48:48] Amy Harkness: Yeah, when I heard it, I'm like, oh, that totally makes sense. I hadn't thought about it that way, but then again, I hadn't really thought about middle age either. Yeah, you had said that, but I think middle essence is a good way of seeing it and connecting to what I feel like goes on.
[49:13] Christina Donovan: Thank you so much, Amy, for taking the time to talk to us. We appreciate your willingness to share, particularly in regards to your health challenges. We think many of the issues Amy discusses will resonate with our listeners, but especially the health issues we think many of us are like Amy. Mentally, we see or picture ourselves younger than we actually are. Our physical bodies, in contrast, constantly remind us, whether through daily aches and pains or more serious conditions, that we are aging and our bodies won't be around forever. For many of us, middle age is where we first discover that we have taken our health for granted. That is partly why we called this episode the Curveball, because that is how we view many of the health issues we undergo at this time of life. Our health may be something we never spent much time or energy thinking about, and then all of a sudden, a chronic condition, a devastating diagnosis, or just feeling poorly day in and day out. It now becomes something we do think about and are conscious of every day, and it can totally change how you view and feel about your life. Physical changes and our health are a big part of middle essence, and we have just begun to scratch the surface of what is a really complicated and layered subject. We look forward to discussing health issues in more depth in future episodes.
[50:54] Tara Bansal: Stay tuned for show notes and other information about our podcast. Please go to our website, messymidelescence.com. If you enjoyed listening, please share with others and come back for more.
Today's quote is from Brene Brown. “People may call what happens at midlife a crisis, but it's not. It's an unraveling, a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you're, quote, supposed to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are..“
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Amy Conti Harkness was born in 1966 and currently lives in Columbus, GA. She has been married to Alan Harkness for 27 years and has four children spanning the ages of 32 to 13. She graduated from Duquesne University with a double major in English and Sociology and received a Masters in Public Health from Emory University, and a Masters in Library Science from Clark Atlanta University.
Amy is the oldest of seven children and while growing up has lived in NJ, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Her careers have included nursing home social worker, public library information specialist, and for the last 25 years her focus has been as a medical librarian working in hospitals.
Amy’s hobbies include swimming, needle point, running and reading.
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