Speaking as a 60-something guy, we too see signs of aging. Things I used to do, I don't, or I'm more cautious about doing. And there was that basketball game against some younger men - ouch!
But as for women aging, yes, the body may be sagging a bit, and there may be wrinkles, but I find older women who are filled with youthful spirit to be beautiful.
What do you think your younger self needed to hear from the you of now to believe what you write here? Or was it even possible that a younger you could have believed it?
I honestly don’t know if there’s anything you could have said to my younger self that would have made her believe what my older self has written. I *can* say that I wish people had been encouraging me to cultivate more inner, eternal beauty and helping me to see what that might look like. I don’t remember getting a lot of that in my 20s.
Gah! Sooooo much this. And I notice it all so suddenly.... "when did THIS happen?!" But another friend who's doing midwifery training talks about how entering our "Crone" years is actually a new kind of beautiful era - one not encumbered by fertility the way our youth is. I'm trying to chew on this. (Also, I think this era needs a new name ha!)
There are women decades my senior, thank goodness, in my life who have stepped into the elder sort of beauty in a way that is fully different than the sort that requires youth but is fully glorious in its separate way - and I have always wished to find some way to tell them that they radiate life and goodness in such a way that it has stolen my own fear of aging to a high degree (if only I can attempt to live up to their modeling).
I haven’t found a way to say it that eliminates any chance of it sounding “for your age”ish yet, or I would have told them 🥲.
I will never forget Rebecca (my parents gen) standing in the kitchen with another friend of ours (Skyler, a little older than me - maybe 5ish years older). Skyler, whose daughter was a toddler at the time, was saying “Rebecca!! When she is ten I will be forty!!!! FORTY!!!!”
And Rebecca laughed the most sparkling laugh and said (without missing a BEAT) “THOSE were the GLORY days!”
I developed my first grey hairs in my mid-twenties. I have fine lines now at 40. I determined back in my twenties that I was going to let my grey hairs be and I have. I actually wrote something about aging in my 20s. Hopefully, I can be humble and live by what I wrote back then. :)
I think of the women in my life, in their 40s and 50s, who were, to me, beautiful in ways that young women were not. Mother figures, aunts, mentors.
The knowledge that I will lose youthful beauty is even more of a forcing mechanism to work harder on cultivating a more beautiful soul
Speaking as a 60-something guy, we too see signs of aging. Things I used to do, I don't, or I'm more cautious about doing. And there was that basketball game against some younger men - ouch!
But as for women aging, yes, the body may be sagging a bit, and there may be wrinkles, but I find older women who are filled with youthful spirit to be beautiful.
What do you think your younger self needed to hear from the you of now to believe what you write here? Or was it even possible that a younger you could have believed it?
I honestly don’t know if there’s anything you could have said to my younger self that would have made her believe what my older self has written. I *can* say that I wish people had been encouraging me to cultivate more inner, eternal beauty and helping me to see what that might look like. I don’t remember getting a lot of that in my 20s.
Gah! Sooooo much this. And I notice it all so suddenly.... "when did THIS happen?!" But another friend who's doing midwifery training talks about how entering our "Crone" years is actually a new kind of beautiful era - one not encumbered by fertility the way our youth is. I'm trying to chew on this. (Also, I think this era needs a new name ha!)
I don’t want to be a crone 😭 We need a better name for sure.
I think women’s menopausal health is the next frontier in medicine! I’m hopeful that in our lifetimes things will change and we’ll learn even more!
There are women decades my senior, thank goodness, in my life who have stepped into the elder sort of beauty in a way that is fully different than the sort that requires youth but is fully glorious in its separate way - and I have always wished to find some way to tell them that they radiate life and goodness in such a way that it has stolen my own fear of aging to a high degree (if only I can attempt to live up to their modeling).
I haven’t found a way to say it that eliminates any chance of it sounding “for your age”ish yet, or I would have told them 🥲.
I will never forget Rebecca (my parents gen) standing in the kitchen with another friend of ours (Skyler, a little older than me - maybe 5ish years older). Skyler, whose daughter was a toddler at the time, was saying “Rebecca!! When she is ten I will be forty!!!! FORTY!!!!”
And Rebecca laughed the most sparkling laugh and said (without missing a BEAT) “THOSE were the GLORY days!”
The glory days 😭❤️🔥.
Killed my dread with 5 words.
I developed my first grey hairs in my mid-twenties. I have fine lines now at 40. I determined back in my twenties that I was going to let my grey hairs be and I have. I actually wrote something about aging in my 20s. Hopefully, I can be humble and live by what I wrote back then. :)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.https://amandabarber.substack.com/p/the-gray-hair-stays
This is lovely, and helpful. Thank you☺️