I’ve been on the planet for 48 years. My hair is going grey. My face and other parts are sagging. Wrinkles appear with zits on top of them. My hip doesn’t work right. My feet hurt. My fingers are stiff. A while back I had been feeling all of this keenly and knew that I had to change the internalized images I held about aging. Somehow, the sexist, ageist culture had seeped into my deepest sense of what aging means. I was feeling washed up, used up, old, dry, grey.
Of course I know that all of this is an illusion. That it doesn’t matter. That life is impermanent. But I also live in the real world and in the cyber world. The world of lovely young airbrushed images.
In this cyber-real world, what did I do to cheer myself up, to change those internal pictures? Therapy? Church? Support groups? No, I created a Pinterest page called “Aging Gracefully Feistily and….” Now when I feel that anti-aging voice of internalized oppression creeping into my thoughts, I turn to the internet. Check out my lovely board of feisty, fun, life-loving over 40 women…. They are an inspiration.