So sue me.
I don't feel old. I don't mind growing old. At every older stage, I actually enjoy myself even more. I can't even imagine being five years younger. That would be pre-grandchildren. Awful to even contemplate. I look forward to being five years older. So many more rich experiences waiting for me. Maybe I will get to that African Safari I have been dying to explore. Maybe by then my youngest will be engaged (married is pushing it...) and I will finally get to meet that fabulous girl I know is waiting out there for him. There's just so much to do now; so much to look forward to that I simply do not have any time to think about growing old. Maybe older. Not old.
Which is why I had no idea why my editor dropped the topic of this article into my box. “Write about growing old,” she said.
Who? Me? I thought. “Why me? I'm not old!”
But apparently I am. Or, at least, I am at that age that people start feeling that oh-no-I-am-growing-old feeling. And suddenly they begin to look and act ridiculous. Loooong wigs. Teenage style flouncy skirts, exchanging millions of inane clips via their Whattsap or other media, and other stuff like discussing their face lifts—or wanting face lifts.
I don't know why people are afraid of being old, why they need to fight the normal signs of aging to look younger, why they think it's so terrible to grow older to begin with.
Okay. Dumb thing to say. Of course I know why people fight growing old. Here's the list of superficial reasons: Our culture reveres beauty and youth so many women buy into that reverence, wanting to remain perpetually beautiful and young in order to fit into the prevailing culture. We like pretty people. We are fascinated by the energy and the potential of the young. I knew I had crossed over to old when I woke up one morning and realized that I no longer had any interest in hang-gliding off a cliff.
Old age brings physical limitations even to those who are healthy. Fact is, my voice no longer carries clear across the bungalow colony as it used to. Fact is I can no longer sit in that weird position with my knees in front and my toes splayed out to the back. And I'm going to need reading glasses like all of my friends pretty soon.
I am not going to lie to you and say that it is not true that in a crowd, older people are sometimes ignored or passed over; that we sometimes think that younger means more attuned or knowledgeable, more with the program. We live in a society that discriminates, on some level, against age. It's not a pretty truth, but it exists.
So for all of these, it would make sense that some people are afraid of aging.
Right?
Wrong.
Because the truth is, many older people are living productive, wonderful lives, despite wrinkles, despite giving up skiing and skydiving, despite gaining those pesky middle-aged pounds and wearing SAS shoes.
So if a person begins to notice their youth fading, what makes one person turn to botox and another to immerse herself enthusiastically into interests she finally has time for?
Okay. Little intermission for a psychology lesson here.
There was this very famous guy, Erik Erikson, who developed a theory to describe the development of Man and using all his powers of originality, called it the Eight Stages of Maturation. I am going to skip over the first six stages, which apply to people age 0 months to about age forty, and jump to the last two stages that apply to those between forty and sixty five and those sixty five plus. The seventh stage is called (again, very original and creative) Middle Adulthood, and the task of this stage is to promote generativity; because if not, stagnation creeps in. Generativity is the act of productivity and creativity for self and others, and is built on the previous tasks of the younger selves. The last stage is called Mature Adulthood (this guy must have been a writer!) and its task of the human being is integrity; or else despair sets in. Integrity is defined as the acceptance of one's self in context of her culture and religion, a sense of continuity—a link—between the past generations and the future ones through one's actions and perpetuation of this creativity (which extends beyond merely having children), and the ability to look upon one's life as meaningful.
While there most certainly are demands to aging, if one remains in fairly good physical health, then the struggles are mostly those that challenge our sense of generativity and integrity. It is when we have put most of our childbearing and child rearing years behind us, it is when we have either made it financially or resigned ourselves to our financial status; and now we have time to turn inward. All that we have avoided in those busy years of trying to raise our children and earn a living suddenly looms up right in front of us and we can't duck and hide anymore behind diapers and our job. We now have to face ourselves, stripped of any external roles we have masked ourselves with.
I think that is when the true nature of people emerge.
If there is nothing underneath the woman who has called herself Wife, Mother, Teacher, Therapist, or Businesswoman, then when all these roles and masks come off, then she afraid. And looks to Botox, to glossy lipstick, and blond tresses with which to push off the inevitable.
Otherwise, if a living, breathing person exists under those masks, and finally has time to take them off and breathe once the children are married, once the career or job is secure, then the person inside can burst out and be all that has been waiting to flower. And to that person, there is so much to do, so much to accomplish, so much creativity and productivity and spirituality and wonderful things to do. They flower in such ways that they can barely see the wrinkles, barely note the extra pounds or reading glasses because they are too busy looking outward to the great and exciting world to stare in the limited mirror that holds only themselves. Such a person meets the eighties with her integrity intact. No regrets looking back, because her life has meaningful; in every day, she lives meaning.
But to be perfectly honest? Since I turned 45, I really need a new wig.
Note: This article was originality published by Binah Magazine as a feature article.
Note #2: Stay tuned for information about my upcoming book about therapy soon to be published!
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Browse through my previously published articles on my former blog Therapy Thinks and Thoughts at frumtherapist.com/profile/MindyBlumenfeldLCSW
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