aging-gracefully

When I was suddenly thrust into what everyone calls menopause (Orchids) earlier than my body planned, I decided someone needed to take charge on so many levels. It was time to not only change the vernacular, but to speak up and say "Hey! This isn't an old lady's disease! We aren't old! We are strong and dammit, we are beautiful and sexy too!

I once laughed at the vanity of women of thirty or forty who whitened their ruddy old skin with lead, but now I know such salves are not disguises for old crones who wish to catch a young husband. Instead they are only a mask we wear so that we can, for a little while, still recognize ourselves.

The more candles on my cake means I get a little more exercise in blowing them out.

It__ this freedom that__ the key to becoming visible again. Not caring what others think is freeing. Expressing yourself any way you want is freeing. Having opinions, emotional wisdom, spiritual understanding_these things free you. And in freedom, we find power.

Her face is silting up, like a pond; layers are accumulating. Every once in a while, when she can afford the time, she spends a few days at a spa north of the city, drinking vegetable juice and having ultrasound treatments, in search of her original face, the one she knows is under there somewhere; she comes back feeling toned up and virtuous, and hungry.

.. at a certain age we learned to see right through it, and that age is now.

And the beauty of a woman, with passing years only grows!

It has been my face. It's got older still, or course, but less, comparatively, than it would otherwise have done. It's scored with deep, dry wrinkles, the skin is cracked. But my face hasn't collapsed, as some with fine feature have done. It's kept the same contours, but its substance has been laid waste. I have a face laid waste.

I'm not opposed to aging - even though society is kinder on men than women when it comes to getting old. How can I look at aging as the enemy? It happens whether I like it or not and no one is set apart from growing old; it comes to us all. Youth passes from everyone, so why deny it? I'm proud of my age. I'm proud that I've survived this planet for as long as I have, and should I end up withered, wrinkled and with a lifetime of great wisdom, I'll trade the few years of youth for the sophistication of a great mind...for however long it lasts.

You don't stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.

I don't see why there should be a point where everyone decides you're too old. I'm not too old, and until I decide I'm too old I'll never be too fucking old.

Just because you__e grown up and then some doesn__ mean settling into the doldrums of predictability. Surprise people. Surprise yourself. (281)

It behooves me to remember as I advance in age that death is an inevitable part of the life cycle rather than a medical failure.

The older I get, the less I know. It's wonderful--it makes the world so spacious.

Aging gracefully - A concept that is rejected in 40s, but gracefully accepted in 50s...

Aging gracefully - A that is rejected in 40s, but gracefully accepted in 50s...

As our body journeys through life, and life journeys on our body_.life will leave marks on us too. From the creases of our wrinkles to the birthmarks on our bodies to the tattoos we decide to place.

We don__ ask when people age out of singing, or eating ice cream; why would we stop making love?