How comfortable are you with Aging as part of living a Long life?

How comfortable are you with Aging?

How about we start with that loaded question? In a world consumed with New and Improved with Youth and Vibrance, how does a person getting up in age fit in? How can we embrace getting older when all you see is how quickly people and things can be replaced? Whatever happened to things getting “better” with time?

I recently had another birthday Libra season! September 25th I turned forty-eight years old. Words fall short of how happy and grateful I was and am for reaching this day. Just eight months ago it could have been a whole other story. People always say that almost dying changes things for them but how does it really? What exactly is the change and what are the steps to making those changes happen?

I am going to backtrack some and start at the place in my life when I began to understand time and age. What it really meant and how it affected people and daily life. I started to think about time and age when my mother remarried and I was about ten years old. I pick this time in my life because it was when I understood I had no real choices I could make in my life. What I could and could not do was dictated by my mother and my family. It was a time when I had so many ideas but was not free to express them. This is when I began to wish I was older and every year I had the same wish.

By the time I was twelve, I began to explore what the changes in my appearance could or would be able to get me. I saw how “pretty” girls were treated compared to the “plain” girls, whatever that meant at the time. I began to hear about my smile, my hair, my legs, my eyes. Then that evolved into comments about the different parts of my body. I kept wishing to be older just so I could explore more of the perks. By the time I got to H.S., I quickly learned though that some of the maintenance on these perks were just too time-consuming for me and I wanted no part of it. When most girls were packing on the makeup I was as “natural” as could be. I just couldn’t be bothered with “all that stuff”. I got up in the morning, took fifteen minutes to get ready and was out the door.

I heard two types of comments from my friends it was either “you got it like that” or “you need to do this in order to get noticed”. Those comments always came in connection with boys or male attention period. It was as if “doing” something to who I already was was a must in order to be seen. And it wasn’t just from friends, my mother had her say as well at times. To me and to others because I always saw their reaction, my mother was a very attractive woman. She had thick beautiful hair, a beautiful smile, great dresser, always well put together. I never saw my mother leave the house without makeup but to me, that was normal because that was all I ever saw growing up. I didn’t realize it was a choice. It wasn’t until I was in H.S. that my mother would comment on my “lack” of makeup, etc….

She would say “put some lipstick on you need some color” or “you going out “plain” like that?” My answer was always the same, “yes, I have no time for that.” By the end of my teens and early twenties, no longer wishing to be “older” perhaps feeling as if I had “arrived”, never really having felt, a “lack” of attention I was I realize now, very lucky to have not attached my “looks” to anything I added to my exterior but instead was clear it was in my genes and my personality. I guess my rebellious ways were ahead of their time then, but just right for now. My value was more than my smile or hair, my perky boobs or nice legs. I had to be well-rounded because, with time and age, all things fade away.

How comfortable are you with Aging as part of living a long life? When asked, I say bring it on. I say if you don’t like something about yourself change it but don’t think a cosmetic change is going to fix your insides. You must learn if you haven’t already been taught that Beauty fades, that all things change with time and that yes you are going to miss that bouncy skin but you are more than that. Invest in your inside while you are still young so as you grow older the person you see in the mirror you can still love.

I don’t lie about my age, to lie would mean to rob myself of my experiences and history. I don’t give a f*** what people say because I am a full FREE adult. Aging is freedom, freedom to cultivate the Life I want for myself and for those I love. Aging is tearing away at Ego, ripping away at the attachment of your Self worth to others or to things. Aging is setting up your own life plan not following someone else’s plan for you.

If you want to live a long life you have to Age period. There is no secret, no around about way, no skipping a part. You have to embrace the whole ride. I am not afraid of aging I am afraid of dying. Of leaving those I love behind, of causing them sadness. But I learned from my grandmother’s transition that if you live a life full of love, giving, receiving, sharing, being, then you really have nothing to fear at all. The physical you does not have more value than the core of who you were.

Embrace aging!!! Wake up!!! Live your life don’t count it down live it up. Whatever age you are you have something to offer don’t allow anyone or anything to tell you otherwise. Projecting is such a waste of time I don’t know why all of us do it but we do. But what matters is we have a choice to catch ourselves and refocus. I don’t have to be grateful I still look good, that is my genetics I have to be grateful I have more to offer and I want to offer more than just my looks. Besides, what is beauty anyway? Isn’t it in the eye of the beholder? Ok, that’s another question for another day…

Check out this great Super Soul Conversation with Oprah about Aging

What are your thoughts? Sharing your aging experiences here with us. What has been tough, what has been fun?

Always stress-free xo,

Mari