It’s really hard for me to write about aging. Hard enough that I’ve been procrastinating on the internet and thinking through what I want to say and then tearing it to shreds before I type a single word–not because it’s so bad, but because I’m trying to avoid writing about it. Which of course, given my obstinate nature, means that now I really have to.
Our culture gives aging a very bad rap. I mean, we live in a world in which it doesn’t sound completely unusual for someone to say that the best years of life were in high school, or college, and once you turn twenty-five, it’s all downhill from there. Whenever I hear that kind of thinking, I want to scream. I mean, sure, there were some good moments in high school, and college was a special time for me, but really? That’s as good as it gets? Fumbling around in the dark being confused and angsty and not understanding what was going on half the time is supposed to be the high point of my life? No, thanks.
Photo by ezioman on Flickr
I’ve been thinking about aging a lot after that whole tooth debacle, which awakened me to the profound idea that I probably won’t keep all my teeth for my whole life. I know, I know, who hasn’t heard of dentures, but it shook me up all the same. And then I’ve been having all these bizarre health problems, and they make me feel old. For the record, none of these health problems are age-related. Let me repeat that. NONE of them are age-related. But it’s easy to slip into the sloppy thinking that maybe they are.
But really, what makes me think about aging is my epidemic of white hairs. I know, how superficial, right? My mother went gray at a fairly young age, and I remember kids thinking she must be a grandmother because of her hair…when she was around FORTY. Ever since that time I have associated gray hair with looking old, so I am ridiculously disturbed whenever a white hair intrudes upon my notice. It screams out at me with its little crispy voice, “Aha! You see me? You can’t even pretend to be in your twenties anymore. And your life might already be half over.”
I am choosing to reveal my neuroticism about aging (and I’m sure I’m not alone in how I feel) because it is all in my head. Yay society for helping me out with that, but ultimately I can choose for myself how I feel about aging. And what I choose will affect the rest of my life, quite literally. This study showed that people who thought about how aging might be affecting them performed worse on memory performance tests. So how I think about myself as I age will determine what I am able to achieve. Suddenly, developing a healthy relationship with aging seems a whole lot more important.
We tend to focus on the negative impacts of aging, but what about the many positive ones? I’ve become a much more developed singer and musician than I used to be, and I have the same maturation of my writing to look forward to in the future. I know and understand myself a lot better than I used to, which greatly improves the quality of my life. I am happier. I know more things and have more skills. I have perspective and experience, and I look forward to gaining more of both. I have more trust in myself.
Aimee Mann recently gave an interview all about aging (imagine, a famous musician actually daring to talk about her age!), and she said:
So that’s what aging probably means. You’ve got to be around long enough to try all the dumb stuff and then get sick of it and then kind of reach the conclusion of, look, I don’t care if this is cool or sounds cool, I want a life that works now, because I want to be creative, and it’s not being creative to be obsessed, anxious, depressed, trying to control other people, trying to control circumstances, and flipping out when stuff doesn’t go your way. But that’s what most people are. And you know, I don’t need to make cool my higher power. Cool doesn’t work.
Yes. I want to be creative in a way that works. And the closer aging can bring me to that, the more valuable it becomes.
Fundamentally, all of us will either age or we’ll die. Given my choice, I’d pick aging any day.
So, anyone else ever feel neurotic about aging? Got anything you are particularly looking forward to as you age, or have you already experienced some positive benefits? Please share.
The Practical Free Spirit 
I read your blog about aging with a lot of interest because I’ve been feeling the aging happen for quite some time now:) Not only do we feel the physical ramifications of the abuse we subjected our bodies to during our younger years, but we also have to contend with the psychological ramifications of solid proof in our faces that prove our previous conceived beliefs as WRONG! When young, we believe ourselves to be relatively invincible. Strong opinions about what is right or wrong pertaining to ourselves and others. Hard to believe that some things I found to be true then are not true now. Is it my ideas that are changing or is it just everything around me that is changing?
I’m not sure I have the correct answer to that question, but I currently believe that aging takes its toll on us mentally because of how society perceives us. If being older meant we were revered and honoured for our experience and wisdom, admired because we have survived life’s trials and tribulations, then our self-perception would be kinder and gentler than it is now. There are many countries that treat their older generation this way, and those aging parents and grandparents feel loved and wanted as a whole. In North America, the aging population are quickly stripped of their attractiveness (women in particular become invisible and are no longer seen as sexually attractive), the older generation are not respected nor regarded as wise and the younger generations seem to think that their elders are just a problem to be dealt with. Is it any wonder that the aging population has so many issues?
I, for one, am quite content with my new persona as an older woman. I love that my hair is quickly coming in white, providing a sharp contrast to the black and now I don’t have to dye my hair because it is quite shiny and healthy looking and NOT A BORING COLOUR:) Also, I am relieved not to have to endure catcalls and whistles and lewd comments when walking past a group of men. I never found that to be flattering in any way, it always felt disrespectful to me and I usually ended up trying to avoid that scenario at all costs. I didn’t enjoy being “hit on” either; that made me uncomfortable, especially if I hadn’t initiated the contact myself. Young people are the loves of my life, enabling me to draw upon the energy and enthusiasm for anything and everything they find interesting! It’s contagious and I love spending time with them…and they can feel that I enjoy their company, respect their ideas and believe in them. In turn, they freely give their love to me. What more can you ask for?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Pollyanna. I have challenges to overcome, ideas to explore and people that leave a void in my life by dying. Still, aging is a natural progression of life, one that can be embraced and seen for what it really is…another learning opportunity that will only make us smarter:)
I second Jeff. Very well spoken indeed.
I will add that not only does aging strip people (and esp. women) of sexual attractiveness, but it hits women extra hard since we tend to be judged more for our sexual attractiveness in the first place.
Some of my favorite students ever were a married couple, him in his mid-seventies, she in her early seventies, who came in to take voice lessons together. They had such interesting insights on life and I learned so much from them. They are my role models when I think of how to age in a way I can be happy with.
Aging as a learning opportunity–yes!
Aging for me is just a meaningless number, and has been since I was a teen. I was already getting white hair at 16, I could legally vote and drive and drink at 18, and it stopped mattering. Now I’m 45, but people don’t believe it, nor do they believe partner a is 41 and partner b is 25; we all look like we’re part of the same generation even though we’re not at all.
There’s only one thing that makes me feel old (which does happen) and isn’t my health failure or brokenness. It’s not even that my hair started falling out, and we decided that bald was better than mangy.
It’s the generational culture differences – what books we read as kids, what cartoons we watched, what music we listened to growing up. Partner a is the same age as my kid sister – I watched Sid & Marty Croft and Bugs Bunny and Speed Racer; they watched some of that but also Sesame Street, Lionel and Transformers – things that I totally didn’t notice. And partner c and I have nothing in comment from childhood really.
But it’s actually okay to miss some of the in-jokes, and I get to show them things like Heathers for the first time. And they tell me what growing up a generation or two later was like, and what I missed, so it mostly works out even if it does make me cringe occasionally.
Damn – that totally posted in the wrong place, sorry.
Gee, Jeg is so well-spoken I’m hesitant to add anything.
I’ll be 53 at the end of this month. I am letting aging bother me. Part of it is what Jeg mentions above re our society not valuing the knowledge and experience of older people. Too, I’m still single, and know I am not getting better looking as I age That sounds shallow, but I would rather have a partner than be alone, and physical attraction (at least initially) is part of the package.
Another thing Jeg mentions is that, yeah, I can’t deny it anymore—I’m gonna die, there is an end, and there’s only so much time.
I do like myself better and know myself better than ever before, and those things are hugely important.
But I need to turn my negative attitude toward aging around.
You and me both, Jeff. But I like to think that recognizing what I need to do is a good first step, anyway. And I know my fear of death is not helping me out with this any!
Also I don’t actually think thinking of your appearance is that shallow…or at least, I think we all do it (well, most of us, anyway, and count me into that group), and ironically, I think we do it at a variety of different ages.
“Whenever I hear that kind of thinking, I want to scream.” HEAR HEAR! It makes me want to scream when our friends in their 30’s complain about being old. I have various reasons this pushes buttons for me, but it would be a long tirade. 🙂
And yet it’s so easy to begin worrying about the past and what *could* have happened and what one *could* have done but didn’t. All of which conspires to make one feel old. Not to mention any pesky physical ailments…while they’re not necessarily age-related, it’s very easy to feel like they are because it’s something different that you didn’t feel before. Tricksy indeed!
To be sure, it’s only natural that there will be some changes to your perspective and your body, and it’s fair to ruminate on those.
I do fear the decline in physical and mental capabilities that comes to many people with extreme old age. On the other hand, when I think about getting older, I think of my maternal grandmother and her friends – for so many years they were all beautiful, active, confident older women who were clearly having a blast and didn’t care what anybody thought of them. I can deal with getting old if I can be old like that.
So far, getting older has really brought me nothing but good things. Not only am I wiser and more accomplished, but I’m actually more physically fit and looking better in my thirties than I did in my twenties. (“Wendy looks younger every time I see her,” a high-school friend said to Daniel recently.) Of course, the reason for this is that in my thirties it became obvious that my body would no longer tolerate the benign neglect I lavished on it in my twenties. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep getting better and better, but it will be interesting to find out.
My guess is that you can probably keep getting better and better for quite some time if you keep up the work you’re putting in. We will find out!
I wonder if part of the problem with fearing aging is that we associate any indication of aging with the changes we expect/worry about in extreme old age, and this association amplifies what we feel now. Even though aging is actually a very long process that doesn’t follow an exact road map.
The most neurotic I have been about aging was the first weekend of Taos Toolbox, which I spent hiding in my room, trying to keep the rest of you from seeing me freak out. I was afraid that I didn’t have enough vital years left in my life to improve all the things in my writing that I had just learned needed improving and still have a career before I died.
Fortunately, Nancy Kress put my fears at rest when I had my conference with her.
Since then, I have felt a lot more positive about where I am on my life’s journey. But it is especially hard to be a newly professional older writer, particularly if you’re someone who has been writing a long time. When I network and take classes, which are necessary for me to develop as a writer, my age relative to who’s a teacher/leader and who’s a student/follower is a constant reminder that I’m out of place.
Ada, I’ve felt myself some of what you brought up. How very much I must improve to succeed at this writing thing before I die! Though I’ve never worried so much about aging, I guess, as death–which is silly, given that if I died today I wouldn’t really care that I’d never managed to produce an influential book because I’d be too busy being dead.
Also here’s something else that helped me put things in perspective. I was just reading a book called The Renaissance Soul, which had an exercise in it that I like.
It asks you to write down:
A. The age to which you expect to live,
B. Your present age,
C. A minus B,
D. Your present age again,
E. D minus C.
C is how many years you’ve estimated that you’ll have left. E is a number that looks backwards from your current age. When you were age E, you had the same number of years to go before you reached your current age as you estimate that you’ll have in the future. Barring major health problems, what’s to stop anyone from accomplishing as much with the time that remains, as you had accomplished between year E and the present? Only oneself.
Also: We all feel out of place. Particularly us sf/f people. If there is anything that completely unites us all, it’s how out of place we feel.
Bravo for Nancy Kress! And bravo even more for you, Ada, for pushing past your fears and doing what you need to do to develop as a writer. I have never felt you were out of place, but I can certainly understand how you could feel that way, and I’m really really glad you haven’t allowed that to hold you back.
You know what’s weird? If both you and I live an average lifespan, I’ll have more time in which to write in the future, and yet I still worry about whether I’ll ever be able to get to the writing skill that I want to be at. In fact, I was just being worried about this last night. So ironically, perhaps your worry actually makes you fit in more? I wonder if writers at all ages worry about this.
I’ve felt a little neurotic myself, but I’m starting to get used to the idea of aging. After all, there isn’t much we can do about it.
Age does have a way of getting us down, but only if we allow it to. “One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.”
I just blogged on the same subject. Maybe you’ll enjoy mine as much as I did yours.
~~ Rick
http://rixxblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/age-has-a-way/
You’re right–as with so many other things in life, there’s not much we can do to halt the aging process or make time go slower. I do envy Hermione the Time Turner she uses to pack more into a day in the Harry Potter books, though! 🙂
But ultimately I suppose it’s all about priorities and using the time we have the best way we know how.
I’m sixty now, and that’s a very scary number. I’m happier with myself than I have ever been, and that’s amazing and wonderful…but I worry about it all coming to an end. We all do.
Yes, I recently read somewhere that the fear of death is something everyone carries around in their unconscious minds. I guess some of us just have it up closer to consciousness than others.
I’m glad to hear that you’re happier with yourself than ever before; I’m hoping the same for myself. 🙂
Mostly it doesn’t bother me. I was a lot less happy as a person when I was younger, so that kind of helps. And I color those grays aka the boys LOL! But I dance with teenagers and some days I just wish I could physically do what they do. Ya know?
Oh, I totally know! I wish for all that boundless energy of childhood–how useful would that be??
It’s easy to be angsty when you’re a writer, no matter what your age.
And, Amy, I always feel in place when I’m with you. 🙂
Thank you, Rich, too, for your encouraging words.
People fear losing their beauty and their health. Someone may be better in many ways, but they’ll probably never look as good as they did in the 20-25 range.
Another thing that comes with age: regret. The older you get, the more mistakes you’ve made. Many people will struggle with the weight of what they did or did not do when they were younger. And you may reap the emotional, financial, and/or physical damage you’ve sown.
Personally, I just turned 30 and it mostly looks up from here. I’m happier now than I was at 25 or 20 or 15 or 10.
I really love this post. It made me think of a bit of good fortune I had, to have grown up at least in part in a culture which didn’t devalue age quite as much, and to have had some people in my life who have become models of the way I want to age. Two of my great-uncles, both of whom lived late into their 80’s, were famous for their jokes, their love of good food, and their passion for life to their very last days. One of them, even in the hospital towards the end of his life was perpetually joking, flirting with the nurses, and arranging crazy schemes for his family members to smuggle him out to somewhere where he could grab a cigarette. The other I remember for things like how his sister got him a new bike helmet for his 80th birthday – and he promptly rode 40 kilometers through heavy traffic to show it off to his nephew. My grandparents have been married for well over sixty years, and you can still see how much in love they are with one another. And all of them have stayed razor-sharp into their old age; their bodies may have weakened in various ways, but their selves are still very much intact.
It makes me think a lot about how I want to grow old; but it makes growing old seem not so much like a thing to be feared, as another thing to be welcomed in its time. Even when I think about extreme old age, my thoughts go to old men and women sitting in parks, squeezing each other’s hands, or talking and laughing with their friends and families, as much or more as they do to the difficulties and hardships of age. But I think that many of the people around me don’t think that; there isn’t that same baseline here, that familiarity with having old people around and as part of life. I don’t see that many people in their 80’s where I live.