Being human? How embarrassing: A guide to Aging Gracefully

One of my favorite people in the world used to write this blog with me…her name is Hannah. We wanted to revive this brilliant post that she wrote and share it all with you. Aging is a beautiful process…so without further adieu:

 

If there’s one thing I notice that men and women alike are embarrassed of, its getting older. There seems to be an insane amount of pressure on looking young and feeling young when in reality, no one gets out of aging. I want to smack people sometimes for being embarrassed about their age. Guess what? Y’all need to suck it up and act your age. Be realistic here. Who of us gets younger with time? Actors in a movie on rewind thats who.

 

One of the coolest things I can think of is that you can tell the age of a tree by counting how many rings are in its trunk. I love that this picture happens to mark a scar from a forest fire. If we were to draw our life out like this diagram, I can imagine there would be a lot going on in between each ring. Age is truly an amazing concept to me. It literally is a fact of how long we have been in existence. And guess what, since you began reading this post you are 45 seconds older right now. 46 seconds right now. (Maybe 5 minutes if you’re a really slow reader or got distracted by Barbie’s gray hair.)

When we’re born we know nothing. And in those first seconds of being here, we instantly begin forming thoughts and realizations and sense of self. And with age we get wiser and more perceptive and more beautifully intricate on the inside. For once I’d like people to see age and the correlation with time as an inward beauty. Sure our bodies change. Slower metabolism, hair loss, wrinkles, sagginess, memory loss. Does that mean that we should let it be an outward reflection that we’ve somehow let time win? I hope not.

 

In the past few months that I’ve been going to the gym I’ve been super inspired by a lady in her 70’s that I see on a regular basis. Not only do I love the fact that she’s lifting weights at the gym at 10 pm (I don’t presume this lady has dinner at Chuck A Rama every day at 4pm on the dot) but she makes it a point to still own her body and her mind. I love her discipline and how rigorous her personal routine is. This is someone who didn’t wake up and decide I’m old, maybe I can go lift milk cartons in a pool after I’m done watching The Andy Griffith show. This lady works her ass off at the gym every time I see her. She sweats more than the guys I see around and can definitely lift more weight than me. Even though she has white hair and age has shown itself on her face, this is a woman who decided, I will not be overtaken by age. I will not let it wear me down.

With all the ‘quick fixes’ like plastic surgery, tummy tucks, gastric bypass surgery, wrinkle creams, hair growth formulas, its nice to see people who embrace age by not giving up on themselves because they’re human. None of these things change how old you really are, they only manipulate the outside to mimick the world’s superficial idea that being beautiful doesn’t have to answer to time. Well guess what Joan Rivers, even with your nose jobs, boob jobs, botox, countless other surgeries, you still have a birth certificate that shows you’re a 79 yr old woman. And frankly a woman who looks like a kindergarten craft project gone wrong with a pair of scissors and several bottles of glue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope more than anything, that you the reader, will learn to see aging as a constant, beautiful, expansion of wisdom and experiences. So what if you have bags under your eyes and your boobs sag after having kids? You know more about parenting than you did when your boobs were perky and your eyes are tired because you have more responsiblities and more things to care about than when you were 10. Lying about your age doesn’t make it true. And joking about it with ‘I’m older than dirt’ doesn’t make you sound like you’re very happy with how far you’ve come. You’re still here. Own it.

Age is a fact about you that you can’t ever escape. The cool thing about it is that it’s a fact that’s always changing. Look at yourself in the mirror. You’re different even now. Maybe a little wiser. A little stronger. A little more loving. Those things speak out through your body. Age looks good on everyone if you let it be more than just whats on the surface.

So..how old (and awesome) are you?

 Keep it real,

Hannah