When I tell someone I’m a flower farmer, there is often a pause, followed quickly by the inevitable question, “What’s your favorite flower?” That’s a hard question to answer. My flip answer, “the one that out competes weeds.” But my real answer, it depends.

When I decided to retire from teaching and start the flower farm, I struggled with the idea of starting something brand new as I was retiring. The physical work would be too much, the learning curve too steep. I knew I would make a lot of mistakes. Besides, all the flower farmers on Instagram were mostly in their 20s and flower-field beautiful. I don’t consider myself overly concerned with my age, but I realized that a lot of my fear was about my age. Maybe I was too old to do this. I was quick to blame social media and the outside world for my trepidation. I had read the Atlantic article (and numerous other articles) about female invisibility after 50, but I also questioned whether I was doing enough to search out my own inspiration. Lately, in addition to learning how to be a flower farmer, I’ve been cultivating my own “over-50” inspiration.