It’s been a while since I’ve had a moment to sit and write one of my random musings. I have a long list of them that I want to write, but some of those musings may never see the light of day. Not sure how to deliver them after the past two years….it seems so little is read with care and true tolerance any more. So, I stick to what’s easy….not that today’s topic is a cake walk….but it’s what I felt compelled to ruminate on via my keyboard so here we go…
Aging.
That’s what I want to write about today.
Aging and the often impossible dance we have with embracing it.
I was moved to write about this after being reminded that not too long ago someone I used to know quite well decided to tell my daughter that they bet I wished I was in my 20s because I was starting to get old. I don’t know what bothered me more….the ridiculousness of the assumption or the fact that they felt the need to say that to my girl. Imagine what a message that sent her. Come on.
…and while yes I absolutely LOVED my 20s (they were quite possibly the best years of my life)….I honestly have no desire to be in my 20s now. I grew up in the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and had my glory days in the early 2000’s. Those were the best of decades and the best of times. Bar none. My Gen X membership card is carried with pride. I would not want to be a young adult now. I’m not a fan of the way the world has turned out.
So no….I don’t wish I was younger. I do think a lot about aging though.
Next month I’ll be a year older. One year closer to my 5th decade on this earth and I often struggle with believing it. I was just graduating from high school yesterday. I was just graduating from college yesterday. I was just traveling the world as a young, wide-eyed model-girl yesterday.
Just yesterday. No?
No.
I am mother to two teenagers on the brink of walking out into the wide world and doing, and hopefully seeing, all the amazing things I got to experience. All the corners of the world I lay foot on. The sights, the smells, the tastes, the people. Life.
I sit here feeling the impossibility of somehow quantum leaping from age 21 to 47 and not truly understanding how that happened.
….and yet I’m ok with it.
I won’t lie and say that looking in the mirror and seeing changes as I age is easy…one more line, one more gray hair, less fullness in the face….once I put my glasses on of course (I think the Universe has us lose our perfect vision as we age in order to give us merciful glances of “oh hey I don’t look so bad” when we look in the mirror without our spectacles).
I have serums, oils, potions, lotions, scrubs, and face tools to preserve the integrity of my face. I eat healthily, take supplements, and work out daily to preserve the integrity of my body (inside and out of course!) I dye my grays back to brown because I have not yet learned to accept my inner Cruella DeVille. I like to think of this as maintenance rather than denial.
I do aim to face aging headlong and with as much grace as possible.
…..but I won’t deny it.
As a woman, the aging process has always been rather brutal and unfair. While men become more interesting, rugged, and handsome as they age….we women have long been expected to remain Lolitas….and how sick is that if you think about it?
I worked in the modeling industry for 15 years in total and never aged more than 5 years within that time. Meaning, that in order to remain bookable I was marketed as being anywhere from 18-21 well into my mid 30’s. It was believable because I never looked my age. I was shooting teen magazines with Russian 15 year old models when I was 25. This was and still is par for the course in the industry although there is more inclusivity now…but not enough.
Social media has made it worse because we women are faced with a 24 hour barrage of insta-models to compare ourselves to. It’s not so much being compared to actual agency represented models in magazines as it is being compared to the impossible because, well, filters….now we have basically cartoons to live up to? Nah. This is not for me.
I want to be proactive in my aging gracefully….but I don’t envy youth and I don’t envy the young girls who feel like they can’t post a picture without a crazy doe-eyed, freckled, Jolie-lipped filter. I feel like all of that falls into a mental health category we can discuss later.
I do envy time…or the abundance of it (although I do know that youth is not a promise of time…but you catch my drift). Although I have lived, done and seen more than most because I was incredibly blessed to work and travel for so many years….I feel the impulse for more. I feel the desire to re-do so many things.
I also feel like I am not in the place, career-wise and financially, that I had always envisioned I would be in at my age.
I work on acceptance every day.
I don’t mind growing older. I feel very strongly that aging is a privilege and we need to understand it as such. I do also see how hard it is to get past the youth obsession so prevalent in society….and to feel comfortable in your skin as it softens and begins to show the roadmap of your life. As women, we need to somehow learn to feel attractive as we age…because there is so much beauty in wisdom and experience. A beauty that cannot be bought unlike all that skin deep stuff.
A beauty that, in essence, grows…while all the other stuff inevitably fades away.
I loved being younger….because of the time in history I got to enjoy, the people I was surrounded with, and the experiences that I had (blessedly outside of a smartphone camera lens). I would not want to be younger now.
I would just love the insouciance of not being reminded of my own mortality….I think once you lose a parent this becomes very much ingrained in your psyche and impossible to shake. I do miss that “sky’s the limit and I have forever to get there” bravado of my younger years. I would also love a few less aches, snaps, crackles, and pops every time I get up in the morning.
I’m learning (not so easy) to embrace the physical changes I see and feel. I know there are more coming.
I’m ready.
I also have Frankincense and Advil. 😉
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