A few days ago, a blogger friend wrote that she was discouraged about getting older. She posted this:
I’m kicking, running and screaming from the downhill slide. How did/are you all handling the realities of aging? What’s your secret weapon (person, place or thing)?
The blogger got a lot of input from her discussion group. Here were some of the suggestions:
- Exercise
- Spanx
- Meditation
- Good food
- A wardrobe update
- Change to more age-appropriate makeup style
- Have a positive outlook
All good ideas, but here was mine:
Why do you consider aging a downhill slide?
Life is what you make it. If you see yourself as cranky, crotchety, wrinkled and sexless, you probably are, in which case, it’s time for an attitude make-over. I mean, I get the thing about death and all, but if you’re sixty, you might have 25-30 (or even more) good years left. That’s a gift! That’s as long as it took to work your career, or create a fully-formed batch of offspring.
Hey, I’m not in denial about the crappy side of getting old, but a bad attitude about aging can hurt you. According to Barbara Strauch in her wonderful book, The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain, seniors who were tested for memory did better when they were first given positive information about aging. The group that was told negative things? They didn’t do as well.
You can dispute the study, but you’ve lived long enough to know that attitudes and words matter.
What happens if parents repeatedly tell a child she’s stupid, incompetent, clumsy, or bad? What will happen to that kid? Why is it different for us?
Margaret Gullette, a researcher at Brandeis University, says we’re victims of the “ideology of decline.” We’ve allowed ourselves to be “aged by culture,” and taught to think of ourselves in an “age graded” way, based on the sense that “the body fails at midlife and this bodily failure matters more than anything else,” while the positive aspects of aging, such as maturity, competence, and compassion, are not seen as age-related. According to Gullette,
(This) ideology works to enclose us in self doubt, embarrassment, shame, humiliation, despair…By learning to concentrate on an ‘aging’ body, the twentieth century midlife subject learns how isolated and helpless he or she is.
If we’re allowing ourselves to be “aged by culture,” maybe we should look to a different culture. My good friend, Julie Mahoney, told me that the Japanese have no word for menopause. The closest they come is konenki. Literally translated, ko means “renewal and regeneration,” nen means “year” or “years,” and ki means “season” or “energy.” Isn’t that beautiful?
So, I challenge you to counter our hair-tearing assumptions about aging. If you need scientific backup, I wrote here about your incredible aging brain.
And here is Isabella Rossellini with her “Surely you jest” attitude about aging.
Finally, here’s how my Mom got over on those who would devalue her due to her age and diminutive stature.
Okay, I’ll stop with the links or you’ll never get anything done. Have a great weekend.
Age is so double sided. We’re glad for more experienced, but remembering how that experience would have come in handy is still tough.
Age plays out in stark terms in a gym. Baby boomers are either in denial and still working toward their maximum lifts, or they’re in health maintenance trying to slow the slide toward…the end?
I tell them to pick one thing each month and make it better. From calves to necks, there’s something waiting to be ‘better than it ever was.’
They tell me to rest my vocal chords.
I like that moderate approach, David. I’m an incrementalist myself!
Lynne – What a great group of women you’ve attracted with your blog! Yes, we age, and hopefully we discover that inner beauty and wisdom that comes with age. I look back at how I wasted much of my youth, but even that has become important to where I am now and my outlook on life. My body doesn’t function the way my mind wishes it would, but as long as I stay active it keeps my spirit alive. I have my daughters to keep me going. Now, if I could acquire the grandchildren as you have, it would be an new workout tool for me. I may be sliding downhill but I’m taking a bottle of wine with me.
It is a great group of friends, isn’t it, Kathy? And you just bring that bottle with you to Jekyll Island. I’m thinking early May next year?
Every now and then it crosses my mind that the “age thing” could be payback for our (MY!) misspent youth. After all, we are the ones that said, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” What did we know?
Love your perspective that with one’s next 25-30 years, there’s enough time to “create a fully-formed batch of offspring.” Just please–please, please, please–tell me that’s not how I have to spend these glorious years. LOL
You said, “If you see yourself as cranky, crotchety, wrinkled and sexless, you probably are, in which case, it’s time for an attitude make-over.” Best advice EV-er!
Susan, don’t worry about the offspring. This time around, it’s us. We’re the project now. Going to spend a little time on ourselves!
I feel like raising my arms in the air and letting out a big “wheeee!” on the slide after reading your post and these fantastic comments. Attitude and gratitude are everything. Thanks for an uplifting reminder Lynne.
Barbara, it is great to kind of “sit together” and yak about issues, isn’t it? I treasure that. I’m so grateful for my AST buddies. Getting older seems almost fun when you’ve got a bunch of girlfriends traveling the path with you.
I’ve never understood this idea that life is over at age 50. Fortunately, I’ve always been a free spirit so not going along with what is considered conventional wisdom is EZPZ for me. But like you, I see all sorts of woman worry themselves into a tizzy about getting older. They make me sad, but all I can do is lead by example.
Your example is reassuring, Ally. We need to see each other doing things unconventionally. It gives the rest of us permission to live our one precious life fully, as much to our making as possible and ethical.
Why thank you. You flatter me. But I give all the credit to my mother who did things her way– quietly, politely, with a tad of rebellion in her heart. I’m only following her lead.
Lynne, time after time your writing is so spot on. Do we focus on the “downhill slide” aspects of aging or on making the most of the years we are privileged to have? I vote for the latter.
I like this post and the comments on it so much that my blog post this week is going to be telling people about this blog post and encouraging them to come here to read it. 🙂
Thanks, Bonnie, what a compliment. Let me reciprocate by mentioning your excellent blog at http://www.savoringyoursixties.com/. See you soon!
Why thank you, Lynne. That’s most kind of you.
I don’t want to suggest we grow forgetful as we age, but I’d forgotten you were addressing this subject 🙂 I’d also forgotten that the free classes I can now take at the state university is called the SENIOR CITIZEN Program. What? What did they just call me? It absolutely does not compute in my brain, and for that I’m grateful. Of course we gain aches and pains as we age and all our bits and bobs aren’t where they used to be, but it’s an exchange, not a loss. I’ve gained much more on this side of 60 than I ever had when my body was younger.
I don’t think aging and mortality sink down to the bone until we lose our own parents. Those are the people who have always been in our worlds, and when they’re gone, normal is gone and a sense of urgency takes over. Life settles into a slower pace as everything becomes more vivid, more real. My husband and I lost the entire generation above us within 18 months, and there was a point when we looked at each other and said, “We’re the elders the family now looks to as the wise sages. God help us all.”
If life isn’t an adventure before we hit that mythical point called Age, it won’t be an adventure afterwards. Downhill slide? It’s all a view from the crest of the hill, just a different perspective.
Cyd, I love your humor about it. God help the young ‘uns if we’re the example! But here’s what I wonder: why don’t we, in midlife, get to call ourselves orphans when we lose both parents? Because it feels just that horrible – or it will, I should say, in my case. I have my Mom still, thank God. And you are right – it’s largely about perspective. All we can do is try to have a positive one.
We’ve felt like orphans many times, and it just doesn’t fit for some reason. It is odd, which makes it fairly normal. Life is an odd bit of business, best to enjoy the ride and keep laughing.
Amen to that!
Another “shoot-from-the-hip” spot-on post, Lynne! I agree, the key is to just keep moving past all those aches and pains and focus on living and what we want to do vs our age in years. It’s only a number. Aging is the price we pay for surviving all the stressors and ravages of life and we need to claim it as our badge of honor. I have earned every gray hair and and painful joint I have!! I worked too hard to get where I am now . I would never want to go back and relive everything I had to go through to gain all this wisdom from my mistakes and missteps of my youth. Love how you remind us about all this in your entertaining, no-nonsense way.:-)
Thanks for saying so, Kathy. Your words are very meaningful to me in that I know you have suffered so much, and you have endured and now you’re joyful. To hear you say “I earned it” gives me a vision: I see you on an Olympic podium, holding a torch up high and grinning. God bless you, Sis.
I don’t see the downhill slide as much as I see the unwillingness to do what I don’t want to do anymore. This time of life is more pleasing to me, personally, than any other time has been. I pushed a lot of me aside for the sake of others. I don’t do that much anymore and I really dig it.
I’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac-typical of health care folks-so I’ve do what I can to ensure that those nasty secondary conditions that come from lack of exercise, depression & poor diet stay the hell away from me….
But none of us are getting out alive….
🙂
Good blog, Lynne, per your usual.
Marla, great to hear from you! You’re an example of good living, from what I see. You must be happy and healthy; it shows. I still can’t get out of my head how you perched on that bench at the Newport writers conference, all pretzeled up like the yogi you are. An inspiration.
Lynne, very happy to have found you. I’m 56. I find the Internet has put me into contact with a lot of people who are either 25 years younger than I, or 20 years older. I think it helps to stay connected across the generations. And, of course, within them:).
Lisa, I have a mentor who is 29, and a girlfriend/fellow writer who is 81 and has the same stars in her eyes that I do. I think if we can forget the numbers, we’d be better off! BTW, your blog is of such quality, I signed up right away and can’t wait to read more. Best wishes.
Lynne great minds think alike…attitude is everything. Even though some days I feel so stiff and achey, it’s like I am trapped in the body of 90-year- old, being around kids keeps me truly young at heart. I am sure your grandkids have the same effect on you – simultaneously energizing and exhausting!
Yes, Pat. Kind of crippling, actually, from a physical standpoint. In the last 3 days I walked over 4 miles each day, but even though it hurts, that’s GREAT exercise, and what we’re supposed to do at this age. Plus the babies benefit. A huge win-win. Happy birthday!
I’m 70 and am having the best time of my life. I don’t think it’s a down hill ride. It’s mind expanding and so good for the soul.
Jzrart, love the idea of “mind expanding”. Yes, if we LET ourselves! Which means we have to kiss goodbye our tendency to denigrate ourselves over wiggly thighs and double chins. It’s all about the brain, and the heart, at this age! We can’t miss this chance to love our lives. Keep shouting it from the rooftops – we need your voice! Thanks for coming by.
I discovered your blog a few months ago and you are my new hero. I just turned 60 – it’s so new to me that even saying it is weird – and I love your whole approach to this aging thing.
May, I’m so glad you like it. I can’t take credit – if the folks who make comments here at AST didn’t weigh in with their great ideas and stories, I’d be chopped liver. So thanks for coming by and hope to hear from you again, often. Happy Birthday!
I wrote a post on the Japanese word shibui, The Japanese have a love of beauty that only comes over time, the proverbial aged fine wine, but more than that. They value people of age because with age comes a quality which involves complexity, the imperfections and patina that only time can bring, The Japanese people are wise!
They appreciate the complexity. I love that.
The more I learn about the gifts of maturity, the more determined I am to help change our culture. What a great way to age – resigned to mortality but not weighed down by its inevitability, and still able to enjoy ourselves. Thanks, Lynn.
Love it Lynne, how right you are. I hope that I’m aging “gracefully”, not kicking and screaming to the crematory. I totally agree it’s all in the attitude and since I’ve always been accused of having an attitude I guess now’s when it’s paying off 🙂
Thanks it’s a joy to read your posts.
Debbie, I thrive on the community. Your comments, and the wise and funny thoughts I get to read from my friends here? That’s what it’s all about. Have a great weekend.
I really want to walk away from older people who say things like, “Getting old sucks.” They are such downers! Do they wish for the alternative to it? And, there IS ONLY ONE. Geez. What a great post. Our attitudes are powerful influences on how we handle stress, deal with adversity and appreciate what we have. But I think pessimistic people are bound to be even more so in their older years. I just steer clear of them.
That’s the answer, Dog. We don’t live forever, that sucks, true. But what are you going to do about it? Might as well enjoy every day. Those downer-people can drag you down, so good strategy.
My mom is 94 and although she has battled arthritis all her life, the last twenty years have been some of the best in her life. She lives in a beautiful retirement home, has good friends, stays active. She can no longer see to read or write so she listens to books on tape and also NPR. She sings in the Chorus, and since she can no longer read the words to the songs even in large print, she rides her scooter down the hall to a friend’s room; they look up the songs on the computer and Mom memorizes them. She was a speech major in college and she still gives recitations – long, complex poems she’s had by heart for 60 years. Attitude is everything.
Kathryn, we all want your mom. What an incredible gift she is giving you: a model for aging well. Sometimes when my mom gets blue, wondering what her purpose is now at 87, I say, “You’re giving us kids (there are 4 of us) ideas for how to live when I get to be your age.” I think she sees it. Funny how you never stop being a mom.
Another uplifting, tell-it-like-it-is, post Lynne. There are so many positive aspects to attaining the midlife medal! Though I gotta say that life on this side of menopause is so much better than it was when I was in the middle of it. Truly, it’s only by the grace of God that no one got seriously maimed during some of those crazy meno-moments I experienced.
Linda, making that crossing – it’s a rite of passage, for sure. And being on the other side is RICH. Although there are sometimes casualties 😉
I have a lovely friend who’s in her mid-70s and she’s accepted nothing of the conventional wisdom regarding aging, other than “it happens, get on with life”. She’s a wonder to behold and is now my role model. She never mentions her age or how things were in the “good old days” – she lives in the present, keeps active, goes out to lunch with her daughters and their friends, is active in volunteering and a million other things. I’ve never heard her complain about inevitable aches and pains…she just gets on with her life and it’s fantastic to be around her because her attitude rubs off positively on everyone around her. If I were to tell her she was spiralling downward in an inevitable one-way journey, she’d probably narrow her eyes at me and ask, take a sip of her champagne and ask, “what the HELL are you talking about?”.
A great post, Lynne, I really enjoyed reading it.
YOU NAILED IT.
ATKL, what a thrill that is to read about your friend. That’s what I’M talkin’ about! Seriously, that is EXACTLY what I am trying to encourage! To me, that’s the difference between living in fear or living an empowered, fearless life. Thank you so much for this. I can’t wait to share it everywhere.