I'm nearly 64 and can relate to much of your musings and reflections here. Love the references to Crystal Tips's hair, and the orignial vintage fashion places near Covent Garden. Hair, body shape; skin, gravity shifts and seeing ourselves reflected back in pilates classes!
I am around 12 years post menopause, and friends hint at me considering using HRT even though I have history of breast cancer. All that high dose oestrogen with fertility treatment?? who knows if it played its part in then getting breast cancer. So,no extra homones for me thank you.
However there seems to be an ever growing movement towards older women in developed societies to remain "young, firm, slim, with thick coloured hair and make up, and even tattooed eyebrows etc".
I've wanted to just accept ageing peacefully with my mind and body intact and nurturing my still developing self compassion.
So, I will continue as I am. Daily Acts of Kindness and grabbing opportunities to Chat to a Stranger make me feel good, rather than "trying" not to "look my age".
Thank you so much for being the first to comment Suzanne - I don't feel quite so alone here now! I agree that the in the last few years in the UK, we've gone from not talking about the menopause to the idea that every menopausal woman 'should' be taking it, regardless of whether it's right for her, or she wants to. And yes, the youthification of old women is exhausting. Tattooed eyebrows? I mean, WTF?! I've got better things to be doing with my limited supply of energy and growing amount of wisdom than that! Self compassion helped me get through childlessness; I'm hopeful, like you, that it will be a good companion on the ageing journey too, humbling as fuck as it is to the ego!
The acceptance comes, not sure WHEN for others , but just that it comes. The ‘kicking and screaming ‘ part I gather is normal , not in any ‘fashion’ you had or want . But I can tell you it’s a different PEACE with self and very much what I’d been looking for in all the wrong places. Patience🫶 ...in less than 2 months I’ll be 80, still practicing Yoga/still farming/still learning/still excited about life...I’d dare put out here ...it gets better 😉
This transition calls for bravery... as life chips away at who we thought we were, until one day we are unrecognizable to ourselves. But in truth, this is also a time of reimagining - an opportunity to see ourselves as wholly different but equally special. And I’m sure we are more than up for the task.
Thank you for seeing the possibilities in this time too. I have been through so many transformations, and they have always involved some grief as I’ve let go of the “old” to make way for the “new” - it’s good to be reminded of that Felicitas, thank you x
Thank you for this. I am experiencing so so so much of this. I’m 48, and breast cancer and breast cancer treatment have crashed me into menopause, taken the hair that was the source of so much pride, and the eyebrows too, increased my weight, given me joint pain and a shuffling gait, and left me unrecognisable from who I was just eighteen months ago. It is completely disorienting and humbling. But there is beauty to be found here, I think, wisdom too and maybe some freedom. I’m not there yet, but your words have really really helped.
Dear Jane - I don't think I had any idea how much 'pride' I had in my hair until it began to fall out; it has been gradual over the last 5-10 years, unlike yours, which has been a sudden shock. The side effects of your chemo sound hard to manage physically, but what I'm hearing is that being crashed into so much premature elderhood is really fucking hard too! Good on you for finding beauty, wisdom and maybe some freedom in this, but I'd also like to acknowledge that the urge for cancer patients to find silver linings in everything might also be rather wearying at times? Sending HUGE hugs, Jody x
This is so beautiful and true, and it’s so comforting to me to read women writing honestly about ageing. I have a wonderful mother who is very beautiful and very vain and she has always made me feel self conscious about ageing. I want to surround myself with writers who welcome it in the way you are here. It’s not easy but it is a reality and it is a relief to not feel you need to dress it up in anything other than what it is.
Thanks Lily. My mother was extremely vain and both self-critical of her own ageing body and critical of mine all my life. She is no longer alive, and it has taken a lot of internal work to quieten her voice and let, as Mary Oliver wrote "the soft animal of your body / love what it loves." But living in a culture which shames women for ageing, I know that doing so will be the work of the rest of my life!
(Loved your Substack too, have followed and subscribed)
My mother was always very put together too, but I don't think she ever felt she looked 'as good' as she wished... She'd been critically and harshly mothered herself, and as well as passing that on to me, I don't think she ever got that voice out of her own head... I've done a lot of work on self compassion and self acceptance which has helped me a lot - and now as I age, I can see I'm going to have to draw very deep on those practices not to get side-tracked by body anxiety away from what really matters - living!
Yes and ..., Jody. I’m a couple of years ahead of you (just turned 65, which for me and many of my friends is made more meaningful than 60 because it has so long been associated with Medicare and “retirement” in the US), but you’ve captured my experience, both physical and emotional, so well. I find photos harder than mirrors because they freeze you in a pose/moment that inevitably memorializes something you’d prefer not to think about (chicken neck! age spots! crepe paper!). That said, I am hell bent on embracing the upside of aging because it’s going to happen regardless of anything I do and WTF, no amount of angst will change that. So two thoughts: first, I took up Pilates when I was 59 and have practiced twice a week pretty consistently with a fabulous teacher since then. I’ve dropped 15 pounds and have never, ever been in better shape (and I was reasonably fit for most of my life). It’s great for the mind and the body. Try to stick with it. Second, post-widowhood, the pandemic, and retirement, I set out to jumpstart my sex life and that, too, has proven to be better than anything I experienced in my younger days. My point being: there is no going back, there is only going forward. I’m trying to make the most of it. So great to have found you via Sarah Fay’s Notes party!
Hi Jody! This shouldn't be a 'brave' post, yet because of the patriarchal treatment of elder women, that's exactly what it is. Thank you for revealing your vulnerability, and also, your strength. I know you're not looking for platitudes or reassurances, but you were a beauty in your youth, and still are now. And you're rocking that silver mane! Your words have really touched me, I guess because I am also going through this transition, which is every bit as confusing and troublesome as puberty. If only it was celebrated as much. I also was a 1980s teen in the lake district, or on the edge of it, anyway, and enjoyed the occasional Friday night in Kendal myself, and a fair few in Ambleside, too! Hugs to you! 💕
I'm in my seventies, Jody, and I recently wrote about how I feel "ageless". However, my reflection in the mirror places me firmly in an age and it can be very disconcerting. There's a mismatch there that we have to learn to accept. I'm still trying. I enjoyed reading your post.
Thanks so much Patricia and I'm so glad you enjoyed it. And yes, absolutely, it's the 'mismatch' that threw me, in some ways much more than the ageing... Like you, I'm really curious what that's about, and how to close that gap...
I so identify with this post. I avoid looking at my reflection as well. The disconnect of seeing myself is just too startling most days. It's the same looking at my husband. Most days, when I think of him, I picture him as he was in 30s-even when I'm looking right at him. Then I'll catch him napping on the couch and am startled-who is that old, gray-haired man, head thrown back snoring? I feel that same reaction seeing myself some days.
Hi Laura, I've been thinking about your comment for a couple of days now! I met my current husband when we both in our early 50s, and so I do not have that younger self to compare him to... but when I see photos of him from his twenties and thirties, it stirs up strange feelings that I can't quite name, but there is some grief in there for sure... and then when I see photos taken of me by the husband I spent my 20s and 30s with, they are hard to look at not because of my/our youth, but because of our utter ignorance of what was to come: my infertility and his mental health and addiction issues, and the wreckage of that. Sending hugs, Jody x
Hi Jody! Thanks for reaching out. I get what you mean about seeing photos of your husband before you met him. There's a movie out right now, called Past Lives. It's theme is around the Korean concept of "in-yun"-the belief that everyone you come in contact with has been with you in a past life and affects you in some way-even people we brush sleeves with on the street. In the movie, the woman tells the man (a childhood friend), that the person he knew when they were younger doesn't exist anymore except in his mind. If you get a chance see it-I think it might speak to you.
On this early morning in New England, I came across your writing and what luck! It is marvelous. I'm about to turn 80 and what you experience looking in the mirror today is part of the
of the awakening into old age. I used to tell psychotherapy clients that life is a process of discovery and change and I still remind myself of the truth in that. Everywhere I go I am the oldest and now I can just be. It's certainly so that we become less visible in the world and looking into the the mirror for that face we had in our younger years find she has gone. Likewise is that body we used to weigh, measure, exercise, pinch, cover with fashionable clothes. All gone. Yes, there is a mourning for what was. I can assure you, entering the Gateway opens onto beautiful new horizons that dimming eyesight can truly see.
Thank you Frances! And yes, as a sister psychotherapist, and having been through many changes already (some more challenging that others!) I thought I was perhaps 'more advanced' in my acceptance of my ageing body than I was. And then my ego saw that image in the mirror and went NO WAY! Since I published this essay on Friday, it has been read, shared and commented on by so many people who have identified with my experience, and wise heads like yours who have reassured me that this is part of the process. As a result, I feel like I've had a space to process that grief a little, and let it do its work of clearing a patch in the briars for something new to emerge. I'm quite excited about what that might be (but I have to say, the idea of no longer seeing my body as something to "weight, measure, exercise, pinch, cover with fashionable clothes" sounds pretty liberating too...) Thank you for commenting and sharing your perspective 20 years on; I hope I can be like you when I turn 80. Jody x
Many thanks for this sensitive article. And it was lovely to see a photo of you in your 20s, there is a real tenderness there, in the beauty and the vulnerability, and the looking back at that younger self, which I found moving.
I am still in my early fifties but I find it difficult to accept the change that is underway. A lot of what you said resonated. I am trying to let go but it cannot be forced I suppose, there is a grief in the loss of youth and also attractiveness. As I am trying to.embrace the transition, I can also feel a lot of resistance to it. As if I am trying to tell myself a story I only partly believe in.
Thank you Cecile. My early fifties were the beginning, mentally, towards orienting my life towards elderhood. I began to realise that my young and mid-life self, who always though she had time 'to do this, then do that' was leaving... that at 54, 55, I had more life behind me than ahead of me and that I had to start thinking more like "If I do this, I might not get to do that...' and to start learning discernment. My mid-fifties were when the body changes really started to add up to something profoundly new, something that no amount of yoga or whatever would 'change'. I was becoming an older woman, and in time I would become, if I was lucky, an old one. It is an internal and external experience much more profound than I was anticipating... And yes, the stories we tell ourselves can be useful... or not!
Cécile, your last phrase resonates deeply. At 47, I’m already experiencing the challenge of trying to tell myself a story I only partly believe. The feelings of being older than young [valuable, relevant] arrive so early for women.
I’m so glad that you began with a photo of your beautiful self at the beginning of this post. It provides a filter through which I read the rest. I’m older than you by at least ten years, and have often wondered how to regain the connection to the woman in the reflection, yet in the long run, does it truly change our “beingness” in the world? I am grateful that I no longer have the youthful angst of whether I’m pretty enough, thin enough, fashionable enough, and all the other enoughs. And I’m closer to simply being than I’ve ever been in my life.
That's a really chewy point... "does it truly change our beingness in the world?" I don't have an answer for that, but I'm definitely going to mull it over. I am so grateful for the benefits of ageing - the release from the male gaze, more self-acceptance and a smidgeon of wisdom. But I sense that at deeper levels, there's more to let go of, more to accept... Thank you Teyani x
It’s interesting to see all the comments and realise that we all feel much the same. I am determined to add new experiences and new skills to my life and not get too caught up in what age I am. At nearly 70 I have had to come to the realisation that some things I have to do sooner than later if I want to enjoy them because aging is inevitable. I’m just going to plan around it. Thanks for starting this cascade of thoughts from older people
Thanks Val - yes, the comments have been fascinating, validating, affirming and for me, incredibly hopeful. Yes, accepting the irrevocable changes of moving from midlife into young elderhood can be hard... but the destination is one to look forward to, as it seems it become less and less important compared to other, far more interesting things! Thank you again, and to everyone who has commented. I feel like I'm plugged into the motherlode of elder role models, and I can't tell how much I've needed that! Jody x
I wept when I read this. To be seen and heard should be so easy, and yet as an aging woman I often find myself in an echo chamber. I turned 59 on Jan 16. This was the first birthday that I failed to greet with gratitude—the first time I didn’t thank this body for carrying me through the years, the first time I didn’t approach my own mortality with grace and acceptance. It is one thing to intellectually know from the moment of birth we begin the process of aging, but is quite another to cross over a self determined line into the land of the old(er)! I will eventually settle into this 59 year old skin. I will also allow myself to feel and acknowledge the uncomfortable thoughts that surround aging, while also holding space for a reimagined me to emerge. Thank you for the vulnerability and for keeping it real; it was the gift I didn’t know I needed.
Dearest Debbie, thank you for sharing how this touched you in such a tender spot. I'm sorry that your 59th birthday recently felt so tough; it's weird how these random numbers can impact us. I'm undestanding that acceptance of ageing is not a one and done thing, but that it's something I'm going to have to keep revisiting, keep allowing myself to be changed as I change... I hope that it's something we can do together as we move through our sixties together xx
I’m 42, was an exotic dancer much of my life, even now run a business that in some part depends upon my beauty and sexiness. Aging feels like a tragedy and it scares me so much to lose this delicious and powerful currency. Incidentally, I’m an educated woman with lots of accomplishments, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever treasured anything as much as my beauty. Embarrassing to admit! Struggling with becoming middle aged. Thanks for this thoughtful piece.
It’s very honest of you to call your beauty a currency. And it’s a security that can’t easily be stolen or damaged. Ironically, perhaps our more valuable assets, (our minds, our personalities, our love for others, our feelings of belonging) can all be stolen by evil intent. How fortunate are all of the beautiful young. I look at pictures of the young me and wish more than anything that I could still look on the world with hopeful innocence.
Hi Nancy - but oh, the price of that hopeful innocence! The trouble it got me into! And along with it came insecurity, imposter syndrome, anxiety. Now I know who I am and I would say that I'm 'pragmatically optimistic' about life... and still it seems with the same curiosity that's been part of my characters for as long as I can remember! x
When I catch myself in the mirror these days I think: “you look weird today.” Every time. I love the aspiration you share--to be able to let reality sink in and accept that yes, this is what I look like now. (I’m 62)
Thanks Dan. I'm curious as to WHY this is so hard... and as curiosity is what drives me, I'm loving all these comments! My male partner (63) has no idea how he looks either, but he doesn't seem to notice his own reflection at all, or pay any attention to it...
Or perhaps judiciously ignores it. Or perhaps not.
In my mind’s eye, I’m all ages I’ve ever been. Perhaps it was easier for me to see my 40 year old face and sense the connection to my 12 year old self than to see my 62 year old face and sense the connection to my 12 year old self. The connection is still there, but the mirror puts more distance between 12 and 62 than it did between 40 and 62.
I’m guessing here…joining you on the journey of figuring it out.
Thanks Jody for sharing this life stage with us.
I'm nearly 64 and can relate to much of your musings and reflections here. Love the references to Crystal Tips's hair, and the orignial vintage fashion places near Covent Garden. Hair, body shape; skin, gravity shifts and seeing ourselves reflected back in pilates classes!
I am around 12 years post menopause, and friends hint at me considering using HRT even though I have history of breast cancer. All that high dose oestrogen with fertility treatment?? who knows if it played its part in then getting breast cancer. So,no extra homones for me thank you.
However there seems to be an ever growing movement towards older women in developed societies to remain "young, firm, slim, with thick coloured hair and make up, and even tattooed eyebrows etc".
I've wanted to just accept ageing peacefully with my mind and body intact and nurturing my still developing self compassion.
So, I will continue as I am. Daily Acts of Kindness and grabbing opportunities to Chat to a Stranger make me feel good, rather than "trying" not to "look my age".
Thank you so much for being the first to comment Suzanne - I don't feel quite so alone here now! I agree that the in the last few years in the UK, we've gone from not talking about the menopause to the idea that every menopausal woman 'should' be taking it, regardless of whether it's right for her, or she wants to. And yes, the youthification of old women is exhausting. Tattooed eyebrows? I mean, WTF?! I've got better things to be doing with my limited supply of energy and growing amount of wisdom than that! Self compassion helped me get through childlessness; I'm hopeful, like you, that it will be a good companion on the ageing journey too, humbling as fuck as it is to the ego!
The acceptance comes, not sure WHEN for others , but just that it comes. The ‘kicking and screaming ‘ part I gather is normal , not in any ‘fashion’ you had or want . But I can tell you it’s a different PEACE with self and very much what I’d been looking for in all the wrong places. Patience🫶 ...in less than 2 months I’ll be 80, still practicing Yoga/still farming/still learning/still excited about life...I’d dare put out here ...it gets better 😉
”I've wanted to just accept ageing peacefully with my mind and body intact and nurturing my still developing self compassion.” Love this. Beautiful.
This transition calls for bravery... as life chips away at who we thought we were, until one day we are unrecognizable to ourselves. But in truth, this is also a time of reimagining - an opportunity to see ourselves as wholly different but equally special. And I’m sure we are more than up for the task.
Thank you for seeing the possibilities in this time too. I have been through so many transformations, and they have always involved some grief as I’ve let go of the “old” to make way for the “new” - it’s good to be reminded of that Felicitas, thank you x
Thank you for this. I am experiencing so so so much of this. I’m 48, and breast cancer and breast cancer treatment have crashed me into menopause, taken the hair that was the source of so much pride, and the eyebrows too, increased my weight, given me joint pain and a shuffling gait, and left me unrecognisable from who I was just eighteen months ago. It is completely disorienting and humbling. But there is beauty to be found here, I think, wisdom too and maybe some freedom. I’m not there yet, but your words have really really helped.
Dear Jane - I don't think I had any idea how much 'pride' I had in my hair until it began to fall out; it has been gradual over the last 5-10 years, unlike yours, which has been a sudden shock. The side effects of your chemo sound hard to manage physically, but what I'm hearing is that being crashed into so much premature elderhood is really fucking hard too! Good on you for finding beauty, wisdom and maybe some freedom in this, but I'd also like to acknowledge that the urge for cancer patients to find silver linings in everything might also be rather wearying at times? Sending HUGE hugs, Jody x
Ogden Nash write a poem about the lady at the beginning of that timeline:
"Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.
Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.
Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.
Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.
Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?
Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then—
How old is Spring, Miranda? "
I LOVE THIS. I just posted it in notes. Thank you for the poem!!!
This is so beautiful and true, and it’s so comforting to me to read women writing honestly about ageing. I have a wonderful mother who is very beautiful and very vain and she has always made me feel self conscious about ageing. I want to surround myself with writers who welcome it in the way you are here. It’s not easy but it is a reality and it is a relief to not feel you need to dress it up in anything other than what it is.
Thanks Lily. My mother was extremely vain and both self-critical of her own ageing body and critical of mine all my life. She is no longer alive, and it has taken a lot of internal work to quieten her voice and let, as Mary Oliver wrote "the soft animal of your body / love what it loves." But living in a culture which shames women for ageing, I know that doing so will be the work of the rest of my life!
(Loved your Substack too, have followed and subscribed)
Jody x
My mother was always very put together too, but I don't think she ever felt she looked 'as good' as she wished... She'd been critically and harshly mothered herself, and as well as passing that on to me, I don't think she ever got that voice out of her own head... I've done a lot of work on self compassion and self acceptance which has helped me a lot - and now as I age, I can see I'm going to have to draw very deep on those practices not to get side-tracked by body anxiety away from what really matters - living!
Yes and ..., Jody. I’m a couple of years ahead of you (just turned 65, which for me and many of my friends is made more meaningful than 60 because it has so long been associated with Medicare and “retirement” in the US), but you’ve captured my experience, both physical and emotional, so well. I find photos harder than mirrors because they freeze you in a pose/moment that inevitably memorializes something you’d prefer not to think about (chicken neck! age spots! crepe paper!). That said, I am hell bent on embracing the upside of aging because it’s going to happen regardless of anything I do and WTF, no amount of angst will change that. So two thoughts: first, I took up Pilates when I was 59 and have practiced twice a week pretty consistently with a fabulous teacher since then. I’ve dropped 15 pounds and have never, ever been in better shape (and I was reasonably fit for most of my life). It’s great for the mind and the body. Try to stick with it. Second, post-widowhood, the pandemic, and retirement, I set out to jumpstart my sex life and that, too, has proven to be better than anything I experienced in my younger days. My point being: there is no going back, there is only going forward. I’m trying to make the most of it. So great to have found you via Sarah Fay’s Notes party!
Hi Jody! This shouldn't be a 'brave' post, yet because of the patriarchal treatment of elder women, that's exactly what it is. Thank you for revealing your vulnerability, and also, your strength. I know you're not looking for platitudes or reassurances, but you were a beauty in your youth, and still are now. And you're rocking that silver mane! Your words have really touched me, I guess because I am also going through this transition, which is every bit as confusing and troublesome as puberty. If only it was celebrated as much. I also was a 1980s teen in the lake district, or on the edge of it, anyway, and enjoyed the occasional Friday night in Kendal myself, and a fair few in Ambleside, too! Hugs to you! 💕
I'm in my seventies, Jody, and I recently wrote about how I feel "ageless". However, my reflection in the mirror places me firmly in an age and it can be very disconcerting. There's a mismatch there that we have to learn to accept. I'm still trying. I enjoyed reading your post.
Thanks so much Patricia and I'm so glad you enjoyed it. And yes, absolutely, it's the 'mismatch' that threw me, in some ways much more than the ageing... Like you, I'm really curious what that's about, and how to close that gap...
I so identify with this post. I avoid looking at my reflection as well. The disconnect of seeing myself is just too startling most days. It's the same looking at my husband. Most days, when I think of him, I picture him as he was in 30s-even when I'm looking right at him. Then I'll catch him napping on the couch and am startled-who is that old, gray-haired man, head thrown back snoring? I feel that same reaction seeing myself some days.
Hi Laura, I've been thinking about your comment for a couple of days now! I met my current husband when we both in our early 50s, and so I do not have that younger self to compare him to... but when I see photos of him from his twenties and thirties, it stirs up strange feelings that I can't quite name, but there is some grief in there for sure... and then when I see photos taken of me by the husband I spent my 20s and 30s with, they are hard to look at not because of my/our youth, but because of our utter ignorance of what was to come: my infertility and his mental health and addiction issues, and the wreckage of that. Sending hugs, Jody x
Hi Jody! Thanks for reaching out. I get what you mean about seeing photos of your husband before you met him. There's a movie out right now, called Past Lives. It's theme is around the Korean concept of "in-yun"-the belief that everyone you come in contact with has been with you in a past life and affects you in some way-even people we brush sleeves with on the street. In the movie, the woman tells the man (a childhood friend), that the person he knew when they were younger doesn't exist anymore except in his mind. If you get a chance see it-I think it might speak to you.
Oooh, I will definitely check out that movie, thank you! x
On this early morning in New England, I came across your writing and what luck! It is marvelous. I'm about to turn 80 and what you experience looking in the mirror today is part of the
of the awakening into old age. I used to tell psychotherapy clients that life is a process of discovery and change and I still remind myself of the truth in that. Everywhere I go I am the oldest and now I can just be. It's certainly so that we become less visible in the world and looking into the the mirror for that face we had in our younger years find she has gone. Likewise is that body we used to weigh, measure, exercise, pinch, cover with fashionable clothes. All gone. Yes, there is a mourning for what was. I can assure you, entering the Gateway opens onto beautiful new horizons that dimming eyesight can truly see.
Thank you Frances! And yes, as a sister psychotherapist, and having been through many changes already (some more challenging that others!) I thought I was perhaps 'more advanced' in my acceptance of my ageing body than I was. And then my ego saw that image in the mirror and went NO WAY! Since I published this essay on Friday, it has been read, shared and commented on by so many people who have identified with my experience, and wise heads like yours who have reassured me that this is part of the process. As a result, I feel like I've had a space to process that grief a little, and let it do its work of clearing a patch in the briars for something new to emerge. I'm quite excited about what that might be (but I have to say, the idea of no longer seeing my body as something to "weight, measure, exercise, pinch, cover with fashionable clothes" sounds pretty liberating too...) Thank you for commenting and sharing your perspective 20 years on; I hope I can be like you when I turn 80. Jody x
Many thanks for this sensitive article. And it was lovely to see a photo of you in your 20s, there is a real tenderness there, in the beauty and the vulnerability, and the looking back at that younger self, which I found moving.
I am still in my early fifties but I find it difficult to accept the change that is underway. A lot of what you said resonated. I am trying to let go but it cannot be forced I suppose, there is a grief in the loss of youth and also attractiveness. As I am trying to.embrace the transition, I can also feel a lot of resistance to it. As if I am trying to tell myself a story I only partly believe in.
Thank you Cecile. My early fifties were the beginning, mentally, towards orienting my life towards elderhood. I began to realise that my young and mid-life self, who always though she had time 'to do this, then do that' was leaving... that at 54, 55, I had more life behind me than ahead of me and that I had to start thinking more like "If I do this, I might not get to do that...' and to start learning discernment. My mid-fifties were when the body changes really started to add up to something profoundly new, something that no amount of yoga or whatever would 'change'. I was becoming an older woman, and in time I would become, if I was lucky, an old one. It is an internal and external experience much more profound than I was anticipating... And yes, the stories we tell ourselves can be useful... or not!
Cécile, your last phrase resonates deeply. At 47, I’m already experiencing the challenge of trying to tell myself a story I only partly believe. The feelings of being older than young [valuable, relevant] arrive so early for women.
I’m so glad that you began with a photo of your beautiful self at the beginning of this post. It provides a filter through which I read the rest. I’m older than you by at least ten years, and have often wondered how to regain the connection to the woman in the reflection, yet in the long run, does it truly change our “beingness” in the world? I am grateful that I no longer have the youthful angst of whether I’m pretty enough, thin enough, fashionable enough, and all the other enoughs. And I’m closer to simply being than I’ve ever been in my life.
That's a really chewy point... "does it truly change our beingness in the world?" I don't have an answer for that, but I'm definitely going to mull it over. I am so grateful for the benefits of ageing - the release from the male gaze, more self-acceptance and a smidgeon of wisdom. But I sense that at deeper levels, there's more to let go of, more to accept... Thank you Teyani x
It’s interesting to see all the comments and realise that we all feel much the same. I am determined to add new experiences and new skills to my life and not get too caught up in what age I am. At nearly 70 I have had to come to the realisation that some things I have to do sooner than later if I want to enjoy them because aging is inevitable. I’m just going to plan around it. Thanks for starting this cascade of thoughts from older people
Thanks Val - yes, the comments have been fascinating, validating, affirming and for me, incredibly hopeful. Yes, accepting the irrevocable changes of moving from midlife into young elderhood can be hard... but the destination is one to look forward to, as it seems it become less and less important compared to other, far more interesting things! Thank you again, and to everyone who has commented. I feel like I'm plugged into the motherlode of elder role models, and I can't tell how much I've needed that! Jody x
I wept when I read this. To be seen and heard should be so easy, and yet as an aging woman I often find myself in an echo chamber. I turned 59 on Jan 16. This was the first birthday that I failed to greet with gratitude—the first time I didn’t thank this body for carrying me through the years, the first time I didn’t approach my own mortality with grace and acceptance. It is one thing to intellectually know from the moment of birth we begin the process of aging, but is quite another to cross over a self determined line into the land of the old(er)! I will eventually settle into this 59 year old skin. I will also allow myself to feel and acknowledge the uncomfortable thoughts that surround aging, while also holding space for a reimagined me to emerge. Thank you for the vulnerability and for keeping it real; it was the gift I didn’t know I needed.
Dearest Debbie, thank you for sharing how this touched you in such a tender spot. I'm sorry that your 59th birthday recently felt so tough; it's weird how these random numbers can impact us. I'm undestanding that acceptance of ageing is not a one and done thing, but that it's something I'm going to have to keep revisiting, keep allowing myself to be changed as I change... I hope that it's something we can do together as we move through our sixties together xx
I’m 42, was an exotic dancer much of my life, even now run a business that in some part depends upon my beauty and sexiness. Aging feels like a tragedy and it scares me so much to lose this delicious and powerful currency. Incidentally, I’m an educated woman with lots of accomplishments, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever treasured anything as much as my beauty. Embarrassing to admit! Struggling with becoming middle aged. Thanks for this thoughtful piece.
It’s very honest of you to call your beauty a currency. And it’s a security that can’t easily be stolen or damaged. Ironically, perhaps our more valuable assets, (our minds, our personalities, our love for others, our feelings of belonging) can all be stolen by evil intent. How fortunate are all of the beautiful young. I look at pictures of the young me and wish more than anything that I could still look on the world with hopeful innocence.
Hi Nancy - but oh, the price of that hopeful innocence! The trouble it got me into! And along with it came insecurity, imposter syndrome, anxiety. Now I know who I am and I would say that I'm 'pragmatically optimistic' about life... and still it seems with the same curiosity that's been part of my characters for as long as I can remember! x
When I catch myself in the mirror these days I think: “you look weird today.” Every time. I love the aspiration you share--to be able to let reality sink in and accept that yes, this is what I look like now. (I’m 62)
Thanks Dan. I'm curious as to WHY this is so hard... and as curiosity is what drives me, I'm loving all these comments! My male partner (63) has no idea how he looks either, but he doesn't seem to notice his own reflection at all, or pay any attention to it...
Or perhaps judiciously ignores it. Or perhaps not.
In my mind’s eye, I’m all ages I’ve ever been. Perhaps it was easier for me to see my 40 year old face and sense the connection to my 12 year old self than to see my 62 year old face and sense the connection to my 12 year old self. The connection is still there, but the mirror puts more distance between 12 and 62 than it did between 40 and 62.
I’m guessing here…joining you on the journey of figuring it out.