#fuckageing

[daradactylworld]

50!

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”  ― William Shakespeare

And so it came to pass that 50 happened.  Turning 50.  Accepting that I am in another age bracket when I sign up for races and marketing surveys.

And it wasn't so bad after all.  In fact, it was a spectacularly wonderful day filled with the laughter of friends and love from dear ones near and far.  If this is old age - bring it on!

[daradactylworld]

2 of 50: The Night Before

There are events in your life that have certain expectations.

I have a friend that hid for years behind a veil of heterosexuality and when she finally decided to come out to her family, who all knew the truth - it wasn't that hidden - she was upset by the lack of drama.  She had been expecting this to be an earth shattering event.  And it just wasn't.

In fact, most of the things we dread or fear are just manufactured five act plays in the theatres of our minds.

I will wake up tomorrow and find myself in a new decade, and I used to think I would suddenly become gray and feeble, use a cane and have to have my food mashed up into a mushy paste.

But I suppose what will actually happen is that I will open my eyes and find that the day will begin like any other and nothing has changed.

To paraphrase T.S. Elliot, 50 will ring in not with a bang, but a whimper.

[daradactylworld]

3 of 50: Good Old Days

“When people talk about the good old days, I say to people, 'It's not the days that are old, it's you that's old.' I hate the good old days. What is important is that today is good.” ― Karl Lagerfeld

There was a time when my Dad lived predominantly in the past.  In the Good Old Days.

He was bereft after his mother died, my mother, his wife, was in a nursing home and his children were grown and had left the nest.  He longed for the old days and refused to celebrate Christmas.

As a small side note, my father was a hard core curmudgeon and probably didn't enjoy Christmas anyway.

But it always made me sad to see his melancholy stares into the distance as I knew he was living in some memory of something passed.

It isolated him, not being able to live in the now, as the kids these days like to say.  And there is an image etched in the slide show in my brain of him sitting alone at the Waffle House in Bellevue, eating at the counter.

Today is what we make of it.  And it can be good.  Unless you are waiting on the cable guy.  That has, in our modern history, managed to strip any goodness and light out of existence.

[daradactylworld]

4 of 50:

There are things I need to tell you, but would you listen if I told you how quickly time passes? I know you are unable to imagine this. Nevertheless, I can tell you that you will awake someday to find that your life has rushed by at a speed at once impossible and cruel. The most intense moments will seem to have occurred only yesterday and nothing will have erased the pain and pleasure, the impossible intensity of love and its dog-leaping happiness, the bleak blackness of passions unrequited, or unexpressed, or unresolved.” ― Meg Rosoff, What I Was

I have often thought that by living intensely -- loving intensely -- I would be able to collect memories like a scrapbook: extravagant meals, theatre so good it makes you weep, vistas of blue oceans unparalleled, looking into the eyes of the person you love.  And these memories would sustain me in my feeble years.

But I have come to realise, as Shakespeare said, "Joy's soul lies in the doing."  And while the memories are sweet and they do sustain me in my few quiet hours, with each new dawn,  I cannot resist the challenge to find yet another opportunity to create even more memories.

[daradactylworld]

5 of 50: Without Mirrors

Years ago, I taught pole dancing (it's exercise!) in a lovely studio in Los Angeles.  One of the things I loved most about it was the lack of mirrors.  No mirrors anywhere.  It was a nice change to have a work out environment where you weren't constantly looking at your own image and judging yourself.  Because after all, most people who exercise are trying to improve something they are unhappy about and a mirror is essentially just a magnifying glass on that one part.

I remember being in an aerobics class once where I was so focused on harshly judging my own jiggle, that I hadn't realized that the routine had moved on.  I saw it in the classes I taught as well.  Women who were beyond beautiful (some of them celebrities) but could not really let go and enjoy the class for fear of being judged for their own perceived flaws.

But over time, the girls taking the class, as well as myself teaching it, we learned to rely more on how we felt about ourselves as opposed to what we thought we saw in the mirror, which of course is what we fear others will see too.  

I was most moved by a woman who had endured a mastectomy and several painful followup surgeries to repair scar tissue.  After three months of classes, she wore a low cut t-shirt for the first time since the operation.  She told me it was the first time since that she felt brave.  It was the first time she felt beautiful.

Once you leave the mirrors and thought about body image behind, you are left with how you feel on the inside.  Your essence.  Your spirit.  And in that, you are brave and you are beautiful.

Now I'm not completely disrespecting the mirror.  Of course, mirrors are very useful for finding out if you have spinach in your teeth or if your dress hem is caught in your kickers.  But never let them tell you who is fairest of them all.

[daradactylworld]

6 of 50: Even If You're Wrinkled

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled.

Maya Angelou

[daradactylworld]

8 of 50: Respect Your Elders

There are certain occupations that you want to seem older and wiser.  Such as surgeons.  If you are about to go into surgery, you don't want to find out the guy (because still in this day and age most surgeons are men) who is about to slice you open is younger than your children and did most of his practical education on a surgery simulator hooked up to an Xbox.

Or maybe you do, because that is probably what cutting edge (see what I did there?) surgery will be in 20 years.  Heck, 5 years!

But I digress.

When I visited the nice doctor at the NHS, she was...maybe...28?  And in spite of my hesitance to respect her supposed wealth of knowledge, I can safely say she has mastered the art of the disapproving mother look when I told her I had not eaten any fruits or vegetables that day.  (I really wanted a bacon sandwich instead.)

Older never automatically means wiser.  Just consider an elderly lady I met once who refused to eat Chinese food because of Pearl Harbor.  I'm just really glad she's not my doctor.

[daradactylworld]

9 of 50: Ageless

“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.”  ― Milan Kundera

Wow.  Down to the single numbers.  The big day is in 8 days.  But today, I'll choose the ageless option.