I was feeling a little self-conscious the last time I went to Supper Club. I’d just had a minor surgery to remove a little skin cancer — smack dab in the middle of my forehead. The wound was healing, but it still felt as tender as my ego. I tried to cover it up with some makeup, but I ultimately figured what the hell. In a room full of octogenarians, maybe no one would notice.That night, as we settled into Elke’s living room and the golden light of sunset filtered onto my face, I caught Fiora — an elegant Italian in her late 80s — staring at me from across the room. “What happened to your forehead?!”I laughed out loud. So much for flying under the radar. Sure, I was surprised at her razor-sharp vision — but even more by her 20/20 honesty. There was no sugar coating it. She didn’t rush to console me like my younger friends, who said things like Don’t worry! You can barely see it! Or All I see is your beautiful eyes! She didn’t seem to view it as a commentary on my worth at all. It was just something that was happening. A fact of life. She didn’t just see the scar. She saw the vulnerability behind it.In that moment, I felt something I hadn’t even known I was craving. Not comfort. But recognition. And that’s the wildest thing about Wild Women’s Supper Club — a table where nothing needs to be justified or softened. Where we can see and be seen just as we are.I first joined the Supper Club last year, but the story goes back much further than that. My friend Kathy, who’s in her early 50s, started a seniors’ supper club about eight years ago. She’d gotten to know an older gentleman named Bill through her physical therapy practice. Bill was caring for his wife with Alzheimer’s while struggling with his own neurological illness. He rarely left his home in Jeremy Ranch. Deeply lonely, yet reluctant to socialize, Kathy finally convinced him to let her bring the party to him.She invited two women she’d also gotten to know through her physical therapy work. Elke and Fiora were both widowed and lived alone. Through the Supper Club, they discovered a shared love of travel and a renewed zest for life. They started having regular dinners, which continued even after Bill had to move to assisted living in Salt Lake. After Bill passed, Kathy, Elke and Fiora continued the club.Last year, Kathy added Anita — a beautiful 80-something who looks more like 60-something. Around the same time, she invited me to attend. I welcomed the opportunity to get to know these women who were older and wiser than me. In a way, it felt like a surrogate connection with my mom, who lives 2,000 miles away.I remember the first night we all got together. We met for dinner at Hearth & Hill. We told each other our stories. I realized how different we all were, yet how united in a shared sense of fierce independence. Walking back to our cars after that first dinner, I’d offered Elke my arm. She stubbornly waved me off with a laugh. “I’d rather have your lungs.”Since that first dinner, we’ve gotten together once a month, rotating between each of our homes. Each time, over glasses of wine and plates of homemade food, I learn something more about what it means to age. Not just with grace or strength or wisdom, but also with vulnerability. Like Anita, still open to finding big love. And Elke smiling wistfully at a black-and-white photograph of herself as a gorgeous young woman. And Fiora, who has a way of seeing across a room and straight into your soul.We marvel wide-eyed when someone is 90 or 100 — as if the mere fact of being alive is the most interesting thing about them. But longevity alone isn’t the story. What’s remarkable is what Elke and Fiora and Anita still bring to the world, and what they’re still open to receive. As sage as they are, they’re also funny, curious and downright irreverent. Our dinners aren’t lectures with Kathy and me sitting raptly before our wise elders. There’s a quiet intimacy in our connection, a recognition that we’re all still figuring things out, just at different stages. There’s something deeply comforting about that.I cringe when I hear people refer to older people as “cute.” There’s a condescension to it that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s just my knee-jerk response to my own aging. I ask my mother, who recently turned 90 about it. She said, “I’ve always thought, I will never be a little old lady. And I will sure as hell never be cute. I will just be a glamorous old broad.”I wish my mom had a Wild Women’s Supper Club of her own. Maybe we should all have one. All it takes is an invitation, a table and a little time. Just showing up — listening, laughing, sharing stories over dinner — can be transformational.After Bill died, Kathy packed some chairs, an umbrella and a picnic, including some of Fiora’s homemade limoncello. They all sat at his gravesite and toasted to him.So here’s to Bill, who sparked that first connection. And to all the wild women, glam old broads and wise young souls alike — the ones who never stop becoming who we are.May we all find a seat at the table where time doesn’t matter. And all the scars, seen and unseen, are just part of the story.The post Betty Diaries: The Wild Women’s Supper Club appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less