After a lifetime of thinking about others, Alese Johnston decided to put herself first. Adventurous and irresponsible, she’s happier than she has ever been
A
lese Johnston was sitting on the couch one Sunday morning, reading the Wall Street Journal, when she came across an article by a 60-year-old writer who felt he’d become boring – always telling his friends the same stories. “I do that,” Johnston thought. “So a couple of weeks later, when I turned 70, I committed to doing 70 new things over the course of the year.”
Johnston set up a website, Fabulous70.com. She made a spreadsheet, and started filling it with ideas. The only rule was: “It had to be something I’d never done before.” Her first “first” was to eat a nem – a type of spring roll – at a supper club where she lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.
She also attended a conference to learn her erotic blueprint – “it pushed a lot of boundaries, but was transformative” – and as a result, she says, has “had some of the best sex of my life”. Over the next 12 months, she took a pole-dancing class and a flying lesson, ate her dessert before her main, walked new trails, minted a meme coin and got a Brazilian wax.
