To be perfectly frank, I do not like aging and cannot, in good faith, recommend it. But I love being old and you can’t get here without all the nonsense that came before.
For me, aging is the equivalent of coming down with a cold. While in your heart, you know it’s progressing into something inevitable, you bravely hope that eating gummies shaped like fruit slices is going to magically turn the tide. When it comes to aging, you waste valuable resources getting MRI’s of what you’re sure is a tumor but turns out to be belly fat and thinking if only you’d been a better parent your offspring wouldn’t have grown up. You add in another supplement, double-up on your knee exercises and seek to reinvent yourself. Aging is hard work. Doing everything you can to deny that the illusion of mastery that defines midlife is slip-sliding away is bound to leave you cranky.
Eventually, there comes the day that you look in the mirror and when you see your grandmother, you realize that dyeing your hair red just made you look like grandma but with red hair. And then, when you finally get that it’s game over, that’s when aging ends and old begins.
I love being old because I can trot around the living room in a dress that makes me look like a dancing bear, and who cares. I love that my grandsons have no idea just how bad my Jimmy Durante imitation is because they don’t know who Jimmy Durante is. They think I’m hilarious. I love that I am no longer envious of my friend who moved in with her daughter because she called within weeks to tell me she’d had her car keys taken away. I love that I’ve learned that when despair comes to visit, if I graciously offer to share a cup of tea, she’ll soon be on her way. I love that I’ve outlasted the bullies and naysayers. I love that the shower grab bar we thought was a rip-off when the contractor installed it years ago turns out to be pure genius. I love that I’ve come to value freedom over success. I love that there are people in my life who think I’m incorrigible and I love that we’re growing old together.
So here’s to those of us who are aging, to those of us who are old, and especially to those who have stopped thinking about all this and are just living life without feeling the need to label it. Godspeed to us all.
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and a link to CarolOrsborn.com.
