“Aging gracefully.” The more I hear the expression, the less it suits me.
We need to reconsider our words. We need to change the conversation.
I don’t reject the intention in appending “gracefully” to a natural passage that we’ve come to dread – as though a delicate adverb would somehow solve our perception problem that young is “good” and old is “bad.”
Yet “aging gracefully” is passive and presumptive, an issue for and among women, focused primarily on appearance while positioning the aging process as something we can (or should) prevent. Worse, it steers us away from fundamentals: We all age (if we’re fortunate), we are none of us graceful all the time, and life poses challenges at every stage.
Isn’t it up to each of us to face them – and face them down?
Perception is Reality? Not So Fast…
Who won’t admit that growing older is a cagey companion?
Glancing in the mirror or seeing ourselves on film, we notice we’re in between – no longer young, and not yet old. Our sense of mortality feels assaulted. Our identities are precariously placed in question. Our sources of power are shaken, particularly for those who have relied on beauty and used it smartly to their advantage.
Then comes that day when we’re informed by our bodies that we won’t be around forever – an incident, an illness, or an event forces our hand and alters our ideas of who we are and how we’re valued.
But perception is not reality, and realizations may give birth to a wake-up call, a call to action, a series of actions – a resurgence of our values and dreams and capacity to contribute – with a second wind or third, or for that matter, a twenty-third.
Aging gracefully?
No thank you. I prefer aging defiantly, aging tenderly, aging authentically. I also prefer turning the tables on trickster terminology to do with “anti-aging.” Choose your adverbs to suit your taste, and let’s rally around verbs that serve us better: learning, launching, loving, living.
Says Who?
Why is it that when we hit 40 or 45 or 50 – when our necks become more pliable, our breasts lose their spring, and our memories reference twenty years back with more acuity than twenty minutes ago – we begin to replace our grand, gargantuan and glorious verb “to live” with a somber substitute that suggests a downward arc, a series of losses, and our own undoing?
We are “aging” from the time we are born; this is not different arriving at 50.
Ah, you will tell me, but it is.
When we’re young, we find ourselves on the path to more, better, faster. We’re polishing our shiniest milestones. We’re hungry for the discoveries of our promised prime. Dreams stretch ahead of us, and we’re aging toward a future we’re building, and always, upward.
Pain? It’s measured in the equivalent of skinned knees, inoculations, and that first bitterly broken heart, all of which is a far cry from signs of arthritis, a physician’s warning to watch the cholesterol, the regret as we sense in our limbs and look in the mirror, and begin to process losses that are subtle… or stinging.
We are afraid to speak of the sorrows, and even more afraid to imagine our futures.
The Future Lies in Every Day
Do what we can to ensure we’re healthy? Of course! Most of us can get behind that.
But narrow our options, not to mention our focus, when we’re perfectly positioned to be reaching out and giving back?
I repeat to myself the words of a friend who once said to me: we create the future every day. That doesn’t mean every day before 40, or every day a part of the body doesn’t ache, or every day we like our pallor, our waistlines, our energy level, our mood, our kids, our spouses, our status, or lack of it.
Aging gracefully?
I prefer living gracefully and better still – living ravenously, compassionately, honestly. I prefer admitting openly that I struggle with the emergence of an older woman in the mirror, even as I simultaneously see my youth in reflection, along with dreams dashed and those yet to embrace. I confess unabashedly that I’m unable to imagine my dotage any more than I could imagine myself at 50 – when I was 20. I can only hope that in 30 years time I will possess three decades of new stories to recount, poised to do so – with wit and vibrancy.
Aging Reality and “Living” Resolve
Will I pretend that I wouldn’t choose my 30-year-old breasts over my 50-year-old breasts? Hardly. But I’m grateful I have my breasts, and celebrate every aspect of my physical and emotional self that is healthy.
Would I like the strength in my arms that I once took for granted, before a car accident a few years back? Definitely. But I’m grateful that I’m alive and otherwise well, and that I made it to this stage as feisty and flirty as ever.
Do I wish I were a younger, more carefree self, bringing that boundless energy to the man in my life? Naturally. Then again, I wonder – without what I’ve lived and who I have become, would I be the woman he loves?
As for our facile usage of “aging gracefully,” I deem it a pop culture catch-all, a marketing money-maker, a misnomer. It is an expression tinged with resigned acceptance behind which hide hundreds of commercial campaigns that contradict our value, and the resolve we can carry into each and every day.
So I will fight the words we use with the words I choose – hoping to change the conversation, hoping to focus on giving and growing, hoping to convey that language shapes our attitudes and behaviors. Words, like habits and mindsets, are changed with practice. Let’s trade up – from aging gracefully to living fully – without denying our challenges, yet more likely to transform them.
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Beautifully written!
Thanks, Debi – And love your post on verbal communication!
It’s aging…any way you look at it! We all approach aging with our unique spin. I hadn’t really thought about the word “graceful” or anyone else’s definition of aging. I’m doing this my way–on my terms! Sounds like you are as well.
I hear you, Walker. And yes, we’re each doing it our own way – at least I hope we are.
But did our mothers talk about aging? Did our grandmothers? Were they so in their own heads and their own little worlds? Not mine. They went on “living.” Period. With everything life threw at them, as well as they could, and reaching outward rather than being dragged down by a preoccupation with the passage of time.
I think there is wisdom in changing the conversation and specifically, the words we use.
We’re growing older. There’s no pretense in that phrase, and no hidden agendas either, IMO.
Oh, I love, love, love your post. “Aging Defiantly” “we create the future every day,” “living ravenously, compassionately, honestly.” A great treatment of the topic!
Thanks! (And a secret thank you to an online friend who was wise enough to tell me we create the future every day… and at a time in life when I needed to hear it!)
What a fabulous post. I tend to look at it as you do (despite my eyelift). I am grateful for every single day, despite sometimes being perplexed at being THIS age!
Perplexing is right, @Sharon! (Grinning at that. Seems like a great word for it.)
Yes!! We are on the same page! I love your headline: The Future Lies in Every day! I have learned just to face today with excitment and passion…when I begin to think past it, I pull back, because fear often sets in either for myself or my family. Today is where I live and it has proven to be a joyful path. I do not know how many days I have, but this one has been pretty good so far!
I was nodding all the way through your post, Pam. No one says it’s easy, but it’s rarely easy and we all make what we can from the hand we’re dealt. But that can be a helluva lot!
Like you, I don’t think we should be seeing ourselves as aging, but rather – as living. And yes, as joyfully as possible.
Beautiful post, thanks. I age defiantly most days, but I would love to age tenderly. Aging authentically is the best we can hope for……. I feel like I am, at 48, still making so many adjustments for people. I have a wonderful, beautiful friend who just celebrated 60 and she says, “I am 60 years old and I am done making adjustments for people!”
Thanks for reading, Cuckoo Mama, and I hear you on the adjustments for others. (One of those long-term divorce impacts for some of us, when you share children with a former partner…) But don’t you love the idea of still being able to make adjustments for yourself – changes for yourself? I still hang on to that, though I admit I have to remind myself.
You go, girl. You and I and all the women of GenFab are redefining what it is to AGE. Gracefully? Maybe not. With pizzazz? You betcha.
I LOVE your post and your unique take on what aging is all about. You hit the nail right on the head. No rocking chairs for us. We’ll be hang gliding at 80!:-)
Kudos.
Pizazz – I love it! But Cathy, while you may be hang gliding, I’ll be shoe shopping! 🙂
I love your attitude, even as I am struck by how differently we feel about the word “graceful.” To me, it encompasses much of what you’ve described, while “defiantly” sounds like another way to say “fighting the aging process,” which seems the futile goal of every advertisement directed at women over 30. If we’re alive, we’re aging, right?
To me, Ginger Kay, to grow older defiantly in this country is to “live” as we choose – and as we can – and it is indeed a fight, not fighting the process but fighting the messages we are bombarded with that we aren’t good enough as we are.
These are the same sort of messages we receive when we’re younger, that we aren’t good enough if we don’t come in the right body with the right hair and the right nose and so on. Now the message is – if we aren’t young we aren’t good enough.
And yes, if we’re alive, we’re aging. That’s exactly my point. Why is that different at 40 or 50 than it was at 20 or 30 – except we’ve been made to feel “lesser” as a result, and in certain instances, our options have tangibly narrowed where they ought to be expanding?
Having just read your beautiful post, I do believe we’re very much in sync in our thinking…
I’m thinking you’re not at the point where I’m at. I have just crossed over to the point where I see my ‘old’ face. It surprises me in the mirror. I’m not talking about a little less young, but about where I can see my grandmother and my great-grandmother’s photos looking at me when they were 50 or 60. I can appreciate red high heels as objects of beauty, but they have nothing to do with my lifestyle: I walk quite a bit for transportation. My sexiest shoe has a 1-2 inch heel and it’s subtle black shoe boot (my sexiest part is now a very small bit of cleavage). I’m not worried about my sex life, but about the longevity of my health. Graceful still seems a good adjective to me. I want to keep my intelligence, my independence. Feisty? I hope not to be fighting anyone. Flirty? I have a lovely man. When he’s gone I’m not interested in replacing him, I’m sure.
I do understand, Shelley. The other morning looking in the mirror, I saw my mother’s neck and my grandmother’s eyes. It was an odd moment. Disorienting. Inevitable – if I’m fortunate enough to grow old.
You’re very right to raise the issue of longevity of one’s health, in other words the quality of life. As you say – intelligence, independence. And yes, you have a lovely man, and that in itself is winning a prize. 🙂
I like your idea of living gracefully, rather than aging gracefully. It puts a more positive spin on it. As always, beautifully written.
Living fully sounds good to me! In many ways, I’m more capable of that now than I ever was.
Love that advice that your friend gave, “we create the future everyday.” Ah, to exit in the moment. Always.
As long as we are ageing, we are living… and I have always believed that every day is a bonus… so we must enjoy it..
I love growing older… whether it’s graceful or not I don’t know… but it is exciting… it is fun… it is interesting and every day is new… Unchartered waters… always the best…:)
Happy Easter… xv
LOVE this post…and the clear message. As it is in France, you don’t talk about it, you just do it…age is a non-issue. Health, beauty, and vitality can be anywhere and in anyone. There are “old” 30 year olds and young 80 year olds. Numbers are just that, numbers.
Yes, life – defying death, reconciling with the other stuff as we go along.
It is a struggle, sometimes, to admit that I AM TOO old to do certain things (like become a ballerina or an astronaut) and that I now have physical limitations I didn’t have in my twenties. But I still have much living to do, as well as I can.
I love your battle cry here and I think you have written beautifully about a much deeper sense of living honestly and passionately. You are an inspiration!
Living “ravenously, compassionately, honestly” — I like this! Always enjoy reading your posts.
Great post! We can’t hide from it, so we might as well learn to enjoy our moments….For me it helps to know I’m not alone in these thoughts. Well Done!!!
Beautifully written post. I always enjoy reading your words.
This is an incredible post. The way I have always looked at it, each day passed is one set of “that dids”, and every new day is a set of “what ifs”. The days passed might be good memories but they’re set in stone. The days coming are of endless possibility. We are creating “that dids” every day, and there can only be one set of “that dids”, but the “what ifs” are infinite, and each morning we are greeted with as such, with an endless set of “what ifs” that we can do anything , ANYTHING with that we like. I look forward to each day with this in mind, that ahead of me are infinite timelines of “what ifs” in every direction, and for the most part I get to choose which “what ifs” I want to call “that dids”. I may be changing physically, (especially since menopause), but that doesn’t at all diminish those “what ifs” one tiny bit. If anything it adds to them. I recently watched a wonderful documentary called “Hot Flash Havoc” that opened my eyes to the physical changes going on inside me, and taught me a lot about treatment options open to me. That was a “that did” that I’m so glad did. Thanks to that film, I’m now very much in charge of my body again, which feels unspeakably good. If you’re interested, you can check it out here: http://bit.ly/11XQcWS.
My body may be changing but when has it ever not been? I’m living, not aging, and still very much in charge of deciding which “what ifs” I want. Anywhoo, thanks for the wonderful post. You are an inspiration.