Lamenting about my age doesn’t sit well with some of my younger colleagues. But it was creaky bones, not clumsiness that caused me to miss the mark when slipping (ripping) into my underwear this morning. That favorite pair is in the trash now as is any thought of me being limber and lithe.
Aging comes with more than stiff joints. Women experience all sorts of surprises as the clock ticks on.
Aging comes with more than stiff joints. Women experience all sorts of surprises as the clock ticks on.
I read a New Yorker book review recently: “Where are all the books about menopause?” It despairs about the lack of books informing women of the stages of aging. We don’t have much out there telling us what’s about to happen to our bodies, especially as we enter menopause.
The writer is 44, but a hysterectomy sent her into the throes of perimenopause and caused a couple of other issues she didn’t expect.
“A hysterectomy isn’t the same as menopause, but it’s been, for me, a kind of preface to the story of what happens after privileged, fertile womanhood ends,” she wrote.
Yet, it was the review’s tagline that most engaged me: “For women, aging is framed as a series of losses—of fertility, of sexuality, of beauty. But it can be a liberation, too.”
Aging as liberation
Thinking of aging as liberation puts a new spin on it. Let’s think about that. How has aging liberated you?
For my favorite southern writer, Margaret Renkl, liberation is invisibility: “I was never a woman who turned heads, but menopause has made me invisible, and I love being invisible. Why did I ever care if strangers thought I was pretty?”
While I’ve yet to collect Social Security and Medicare, I’ve passed 60. I no longer wear bathing suits, so I’m liberated from scanning the Lands’ End bathing suit issue.
I’ve always been a tomboy (is that an acceptable term these days?), and I’ve never worn high heels. Wearing uncomfortable shoes is not among my new-found liberations. But it might be among yours.
I’m from the south, so I’ll likely never liberate myself from wearing makeup when I walk out of my home. My 88-year-old mother weighs twice a day and puts on makeup before she leaves her senior living condo to join others in the dining or game room. She continues to care about her appearance.
We should never stop trying to be the best we can be—in work, in grooming, in attitude, in gratitude.
We should never stop trying to be the best we can be—in work, in grooming, in attitude, in gratitude.
But we should quit worrying so much what others think of us. I guess that’s why I told you about my underwear mishap. If you can’t see me as a viable and worthy woman because I can no longer step into a pair of undies with grace, I’m liberated from caring about that.
Terri Lackey is director for communication for Women of the ELCA.