Lately, Flyboy and I have taken to watching a new rehabbing show, partly because we have spent the past five years giving new life to an old house. The latest episode featured an aging woman, and though she tried (hard) to look younger, she somehow still looked her age.
Aging is a thing. For real. And it’s a process. We have decide if we’re going to fight it or own it.
In my 40s, it was the realization that this thing was coming and there’s no stopping it. It started with the awareness that a few pounds a year begin to add up and shedding them gets harder. Next up was the inability to see up close without readers, and for the first time, distances seemed even farther away. Before long I was adjusting to bifocals.
The 50s were filled with denial. I can still do what I have always done (I thought). These were the awkward years of aging. What do you wear? The latest styles made me look like I was trying too hard but I was no way ready for the more “mature” clothing lines. I felt lost – not ready to give into aging but powerless to stop it.
And now, it has really happened. All the denial in the world cannot change the reality that it is actually here. I’m really in that final trimester, facing down old age and all the things that go with it. A recent dr. visit found me saying “I just tire so easily” only to hear him say back to me, “that’s because all your parts are wearing out.” Ouch. It is a reality. It is here.
It is what I am.
I can fight it by growing out my hair and curling it in long spirals, coloring it blonde with dark lowlights. I can wear holey jeans and spiky ankle boots and I can even get a face lift and my lips plumped and eyelash implants. But the fact will remain: I am 66 years old and all that time that I thought I had is starting to go faster and there is no turning back.
I can complain about it, but I can’t change it. I cannot turn back the clock.
And finally…I’m okay with that.
There are, I am finding, a number of benefits of growing older. I am who I am, and after years of trying to please people, I am done with that. I am comfortable in my skin, even though there is more of it than I’d really prefer, but hey, I’m 66 after all. I’m saving it up for a time when I might need it. I rather like not working. No – that’s not true…I like not working a LOT. I like being able to travel at will. I like Medicare. I like sleeping in if I want to.
Do I wish I had a little less neck? Well, who wouldn’t. Do I wish I looked better in my clothes? Of course. But neither of these realities change who I am.
I am a child of God, created in his image, for his pleasure, and he has provided for me all the way through this life to his forever kingdom.
It is how I have come to grips with what I am. Knowing that God loves me in the here and now as well as in the forever makes it easier to just be me. He has it all covered. I have nothing to prove.
Praying for you today that you will be happy with you no matter where you are or what is happening in your life.
Love,
Gigi
Even when you are old, I will take care of you, even when you have gray hair, I will carry you.
I made you and I will support you; I will carry you and rescue you. –Isaiah 46:4 (NET)
One comment:
I as you am learning to see myself as a mature woman but the kid in me keeps bubbling to the surface.
When Rabbitt and I go out and by some freakish supernatural phenomenon I actually know the stranger who walks up to speak to me it’s a good good day in the neighborhood. I feel sixteen again!! Ok, I know I’m getting carried away but it’s this kid surfacing.
Let’s get out of society’s viewpoint of our looks. As my sweet daughter-in-law always reminds me, “You earned those wrinkles, those stretch marks, so be happy with where you are in life.
God bless and keep your eyes on the cross
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