OLD

When I was a young girl, I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandmother.  We’d sit under the big weeping willow tree and shuck peas and chat about anything and everything. She had the most beautiful white hair, gently permed so it resembled clouds in my young imaginative mind. One day I asked her if her hair had always been white. She laughed and said that it was jet black when she was young but had gone white quickly as she got older.  I thought at the time that she was ancient, that I’d never be so old and I think she felt that way, too. When I do the math, though, it turns out she was sixty-eight that day.  Almost as old as I am now.  As I rapidly approach my 64th birthday, I am thinking about aging. A lot. Unfortunately, I did not get her beautifully white hair, given I was a red headed girl.  And I certainly don’t feel ancient.  

Times have changed, and in some ways, they have not. I am quite active on social media (something Grandma couldn’t have imagined) and I don’t hide my age there at all, which results in being questioned about why I “admit to” being in my sixties given that most seem to assume I’m significantly younger. I wonder exactly what 60-something looks like as we all age differently but clearly there’s a model of some sort, in the minds of some. Maybe it looks more like my grandmother did.  

My most frequent response to that question is to ask “why not?” – especially given the kind of work I do around self-acceptance, self-compassion and self-truth. As a girl, I was taught that sixty four was seriously old age territory but as I approach it, I have to say I’ve never felt more alive or more myself.  Having been clinically dead more than once, having survived the attempt to end my life through poisoning a couple years ago, I truly believe that age is a privilege.

And like any privilege, we get to choose how we use it. 

The past three years have wreaked havoc on my body, given the extremely high doses of toxins and certainly I’ve had to deal with a lot of fear in recovering from the realization that someone chose to give me lethal doses of poison over time. To be honest, I did feel very old over those couple years of recuperation, for the first time in my life. And it’s been a huge amount of work, time and money spent to regain as much of my health as possible but in the process, I also found a new strength and resiliency.  The book I’m currently writing is about finding the gifts in going through devastating events, and about how our world really poisons us all, in myriad ways, about how we allow outside influences to determine how we live and how we feel about ourselves. 

Perhaps part of that societal conditioning leads to a fear of aging. For something that seems so inevitable, it’s a little odd that it’s so clearly to be avoided at all costs. There is an implicit expectation that we (particularly women) will hide our wrinkles, age spots and less than firm flesh in any and all ways possible. We are constantly barraged with advertising for this anti-aging serum or articles on how to dress for your age or which haircut is deemed suitable for over forty – it’s hard to escape. And on social media, I’m saddened to see how many young people take rather serious steps to hold onto their youth, like plastic surgery, often before they are even well into their thirties! It requires, it seems, a bit of a revolutionary mindset to buck the trend and let yourself age naturally, without heroic measures.  Thankfully, more and more celebrities are embracing their years and allowing the public to see them, lines and all, in a world full of filters. I know it’s far easier to see a bit of a soft glow than my own bare skin, some days.  

I hope that they are seen as the status quo, soon, and that the choice to embrace the signs of our experiences over all our time on this earth is once again, as it once was in ancient cultures, embraced. That the joy of being an elder full of   stories, sharing wisdom and the traditional ways, is a celebrated thing vs a dreaded one. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were the norm to enjoy all your days, all the stages of life?  If being old was a badge of honor rather than a sign of an expiration date nearly reached?  

I, for one, will be celebrating every one of the sixty four candles on my cake this year. And each additional one, for all my years to come.  Life is a gift that I hope to embrace, fully and well, for as long as I am here, even if I look a little weathered along the way. 

——————————————————————

For more on this topic, check out my videos on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube.

Following, subscribing and liking helps me bring more of my work to the world. I appreciate your support.