When I was a child my mother almost killed me with her death-ray glare when her and a friend were discussing age and I confirmed that mom was twenty-eight. After her friend left my mother gave me a detailed lecture about why women don’t and shouldn’t reveal their age. She went on to tell me that when women reach a certain age it is best to skim a few years off the top. She wasn’t even thirty yet and she thought that women in their late twenties should be subtracting years? I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t understand it now why women conceal their age.
Women shouldn’t tell their age?
I am thirty-four years old and eight days after the calendar year becomes 2012, I’ll be thirty-five. I have no problem telling my age even though I know that beauty, fertility and vitality have long been considered commodities that the young hold the greatest share of. I have no problem telling my age because in today’s world things are changing – the young no longer have a monopoly on these “commodities”. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle (proper diet, regular exercise and a beauty regimen) delays the effects of aging and extends the “shelf-life” of a woman’s beauty. Medical advances are helping women prolong their fertility as well. Women can now maintain their beauty and fertility longer than ever but why do many continue to lie about their age even though times have changed?
Young vs. Old?
Many of my friends upon turning thirty declared that they were old. Now that they are reaching thirty-five and above they are declaring that they are SO old. What? I don’t understand why so many women that have barely begun living would consider themselves old before they even enter middle age. I don’t understand why they call themselves old then persistently lie to strangers about their age. It makes no sense to me but then again, I am very familiar with the psychology of aging, I understand the definitions of young adulthood, middle age and maturity but I will fight you to the death if you say I am approaching middle age! Yup. That’s right. I have no problem telling my age, I love getting older but I do not want anyone classifying me into any category. Young, middle age, old shouldn’t they be relative to how we feel and how we are living? A lot of women are living youthful lives well into their years because they have learned to harness the power of aging while appreciating the grace of aging.
Harnessing the power of aging.
I don’t know if I have read this somewhere, if I have written it before or if I have always known this to be true but there is great power in aging. With age comes experience. With experience comes knowledge. With knowledge comes power. Let’s be very clear though. Not everyone that reaches old age will get there possessing power.
‘Cause everybody dies but not everybody lives
As our experiences build a web of living our mistakes tear at this web forcing us to adjust, learn and become stronger weavers or fall off. We ALL will slip but we all won’t fall off. Making mistakes and watching others fail are the best ways to learn about life. Learning from mistakes is what gives us that knowledge that turns into power in our hands. How can we harness the power of aging? We come back from mistakes weaving stronger webs and we don’t allow ideals to limit our dreams.
Appreciating the grace of aging.
It is very easy to for a woman to look into the mirror and hate the grey hairs that are coming in or the lines forming on her face. It is very easy to forget that the effects of aging came with all those experiences that lead to knowledge that lead to power and not see the beauty of it all. The grace of aging is that the longer we live the larger the web we can weave. There is immeasurable beauty in linking your web with the webs of others. The longer you live the more that the effects of aging will show on your body but the more you’ll also get to affect others.
Getting old sounds like a wonderful blessing to me even if I arrive there completely grey and wrinkled. I want to weave my web for as long as I possibly can. I hope that in the process of weaving I affect others in a positive manner hopefully causing the effects of aging to be less harsh on me!
