A Space for Aging

My birthday is coming up, so I’ve been distracted a bit by numbers and memories. Some of those memories linger…they are haunting and unwelcome. Others jolt me awake, and I giggle between images of sunflowers, mountains, and half-marathons.

Aging is a strange thing. The person that I “feel” I am is not always how I am perceived by others. I work in the tech field, and am surrounded by 20-something dudes with long fuzzy beards, tight jeans, and knitted beanies. No, I’m not kidding. I made a comment during a meeting recently and one of those dudes yelled out: “Dang, that’s something my grandma used to say!”

Ah…seriously? Dude, I have a two year kid.

Sigh….

So, as the day approaches where I flip my age-counter up, I’ve been working on changing the narrative in my own head.

In previous years, I would skulk around, keep the lights dim, drown myself in mint chocolate chip ice cream, and try and avoid this day at all costs. But why? Why is aging such a challenge? Does it have to be? I know of so many amazing women (and men) who do it with grace and a bit of sass: Oprah, Michele Obama, Jane Goodall, Jimmy Carter, Gloria Steinem, Springsteen, Barbara Kingsolver, Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

No more darkness, not this year! No, this year, I made the decision to turn on the lights and dance. Okay, I’ll still eat the ice cream, because…hello, mint chocolate chip? But being that I am a 40+ woman, with a 2+ year old child, I will never stagnate, I will never stop moving. The antics of my own child pull me into a child-like thought every single day. Every. Single. Day.

What a blessing!

So, why the hatred of my birthday? I narrowed it down to one massive, mountain-like fear: Will I come to the end of my life without having made a difference?

I am giggling. Imagine me giggling. Giggle with me, if you like. For me, having my child was a game-changer. How can it not? The very nature of parenthood is one of significance and of making a difference. Now, for those of you who don’t have kids, maybe you have pet-children, or are a teacher, or a manager. “Parenting” can come in so very many forms. For me, it comes in the form of a smiling, hazel-eyed, hair-always-in-a-tussle, spit-fire of a son. 

In the past few months, I’ve begun to change that nasty narrative; and it now reads like this:

How lucky I am to be where I am, alive, running after that 2 year old spit-fire, learning, working, and moving that healthy body of mine. Namaste!

I am grateful. I am shouting it from the top of that mountain of fear: I. Am. Grateful! Do you hear me? I. Am. Grateful!!!

Our lives will never be perfect. Our bodies will never be perfect! But that wrinkle near my eye, I’ve earned it. Every laugh and sun-filled squint helped me form it. And that tummy of mine? It protected my child for nine months. No, it won’t look like it did before he came along. Good. I’m not the same women I was, before he came along.

Today, dear readers, let’s giggle, and dance and run and move and be who we are. Can we do that? Just for a moment? Can we embrace ourselves as we are today, and love every-single-thing about ourselves? What a challenge!

But I have faith that we can do it. If I can find a way to love my birthday, finally, you too can learn to love something about yourself!

Care to join me for a bit of ice cream and a giggle?

Call to Action: Challenge your thought, and learn to love that thing, whatever it is, that you previously thought was unlovable about yourself.