Getting old is a natural thing and no one should not be afraid of the natural— trees, animals age, and everything that is alive. I am not afraid to look old. I don’t know indifference, I ignore bitterness. If something unpleasant happens to me, I put it behind.
Women of that certain age are in their oneness. Their hands brushed tears away, hands that were once held by husbands. Indomitably they are widowed by men who couldn’t cry, couldn’t touch and died of heart attacks.
I never expected to be such a poor sport about aging, because I never expected to be old. But I am not clutching it in high pitched sighs and smiles that tell of pain forgotten. In a fragile package are my age spots, menopause and arthritic hormones. Many times, during this examination of the woman of a certain age and the world she lives in, I’ve asked myself, who cares?
The only reason that I’m adding words to this subject is to clear away what I consider to be a thicket of misconceptions if not timidities. George Bernard Shaw said that it’s a pity, “youth is wasted on the young.”
However, what Shaw said is untrue! Youth is wasted on the old if all they do is pine away to be young again. By embracing the loss of youth, I’ve transcended my anxieties and dread growing ancient.
I speak of growing old not gently, perhaps not even gracefully, but with a wonderful outrageous sense of style: I will wrap a scarf to hide a turkey’s neck, flutter my bosom with bold Swarovski beads that will blind an eagle’s gaze, swathed myself in glitz and glamor that I’ll be sweating glitters.
My voice will be lighter and I will dress myself in Christian Dior, Valentino and Oscar de la Renta. If one has the taste and money to acquire it, why not? I will defy the grave with bright colors and perfume (guaranteed to wake the dead and kill the living), tending time which is more fragile than youth.
Be unduly dignified, having earned the right to dress, sing and dance anyway you please. I could even take up belly dancing, and unlock all my inhibitions.
Our identities are not tied to our age. We’re never our own age, because as we come to terms with aging, we create our identities.
Now, I can demand the freedom to take life less seriously. I will flaunt my gray hair, wrinkles, double chin and falling wombs with the acceptance that beyond age, lies a gentler joy and peace that sanctifies old age.
I shall stop reflecting on such things as the nature of melancholy, or how sickness could be caused by the states of mind. I shall transfer my affections to more attainable men forego with the men out of range like Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Henry V, Clint Eastwood.
Perhaps at which point throw away the books, along with self restraint.
But in no time will I throw away a sense of fierce independence as a human being and the desire to attain distinction in terms of mind, spirit and expression, and its existing horizons. I am not going to be worried of what others think of me, or by what standard of morality I am judged.
By the time a woman is seventy, she is either wanted or not really wanted at all. She doesn’t have to fool anyone and accept the fact that competing with women for younger than she is, over anything is not only degrading, but futile.
The affection I now receive is for me, the real me. This was worth waiting for.
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