Old
Age Ain't No Place for Sissies: Redoux
Many
years ago, as I was edging towards the age of fifty but still had a comfortable
buffer of four years before I actually hit that milestone, I wrote a blog post which
I called “Old Age Ain’t No Place for
Sissies”; the title of which I borrowed from a famous quote by the actress
Bette Davis. Of all the glamorous
Hollywood actresses of the 1930s and 1940s, I always had an affinity for Bette
because she just seemed so comfortable in her own skin (or at least I made that
assumption based on her own words). And,
those words were incredibly spot-on, old age isn’t a place for sissies; for those who constantly bewail “Why me?”, for the thin-skinned, for the
faint of heart. I’d written that
particular post because I’d been struggling with certain side effects of aging;
namely, those that typically rear their ugly and volatile heads in women at the
on-set of menopause. I’d been sharing
these thoughts with Mark, and he’d done his level best to assure me that I was
still very much a woman, and a good-looking one in his eyes. “And shouldn’t that be all that matters?”
he asked me somewhat plaintively. “Well, yes, well, no, well, crap I don’t
know! I’m going through menopause don’t ask me questions with obvious answers!”
The
conversation, which had been going thus:
“I’m old!”
“You’re not old!”
“I’m ugly!”
“You’re not ugly!”
“I’m fat!”
“You’re not fat!” (aside; Mark tells me
if I die before him, my gravestone will read “Here lies Amy. She was NOT
fat!”)
ended
with him asserting in the most loving fashion possible that I wasn’t “creepy”.
He meant crepey, as in crepe-paper
skin; and this malapropism resulted in such considerable hilarity that I had to
blog about it.
Anyway,
despite what I wrote in that blog post all those years ago, things such as:
“It’s a wise woman who
comes to grips with their body as they age, because spending a life in abject
misery, constantly dieting and throwing money away on surgeries (that may
result in one looking like a psycho blow fish and thus gathering more pity and
ridicule than would have resulted had one just left nature well enough alone);
ain’t worth it!”
“One other positive
thing about getting older is the treasure trove of life stories. Oh, I do hope that everyone who is reading
this is in a position to understand what I am talking about and has some of
these memories! Ones of adventures, of
events that possibly you’ve never shared with anyone, not even your best
friend. Ones that still make you curl
your toes in delight and satisfaction.
Ones that, when you are truly in your dotage, you can sit and remember
them and cackle in enjoyment at their recollection while those around you nod
and smile and think to themselves, “Poor Auntie, she’s really gone around the
bend now!” Oh, if they only KNEW!”
“I think it’s important
to realize that older doesn’t always mean wiser. In order for that to occur, you must truly
know yourself.”
the
truth is, I continued and continue to struggle with both the outward
appearances of aging and the corresponding, close on its heels guilt I feel for
being so shallow. In fairness to me and
others who are tormented by this, it’s mightily both compounded and reinforced
by the obsession our current age has with youth and beauty; heck, even our cell
phone camera apps have a wide variety of filters to apply to your selfie to
“soften you up” (not that I am familiar with these; oh, ok, we’ll not add
blatant lying to my list of character foibles!)
Many of us, it seems, routinely berate ourselves for being, well,
ourselves.
Not too long ago, I came across this meme on Pinterest; I think it sums up the
situation rather aptly.
God
Affirms: “You’re NOT Creepy!”
This
has been troubling me so much of late that I ended up sharing my struggles with
a Spiritual Director last month. She’d
helped me considerably two years before when I’d been in angst over not wanting
to climb back onto the hamster wheel by taking on too much volunteer work at
church, yet, I felt guilty over saying “no” to God. She’d listened to me, given me several
scripture verses to read, study, and meditate on; and advised me to spend the
rest of the day in nature with God, or taking a nap with God; to think of
myself being held by God. Not too long
into this, I had this thought pop into my head, “There is nothing wrong with your heart, Amy”. There’s more to it, but, I immediately felt
relieved. God knew. God knows.
So, no reason not to believe I might have a similar experience regarding
the whole self-image/aging thing. Admittedly
I felt a bit, well, ridiculous telling the Spiritual Director that, with all
the things I could (and maybe should) be concerned about, the thing I wanted
direction on was how I looked. Yet once
again she listened, offered scripture and insight, and sent me on my way to
spend time with God. This time, God basically told me to knock it off, to stop
talking smack about myself to myself, because it was getting in the way of what
He has in mind for me to do. That came mostly
from meditation on Isaiah 55:9-14, but also in conjunction with a lot of
reading I’ve been doing of late about finding our True Selves in God, and “dying”
to our False Selves. I get that this may
sound a bit “out there”, but, if you spend any time delving into any of The
Christian Mystics and Contemplatives (e.g., Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, St.
Francis of Assisi, St. Clare, St. Catherine of Siena, etc., etc.) this stuff
starts to rub off on you because it makes so much sense.
Shortly
after meeting with the Spiritual Director, the importance of truly embracing,
of allowing, this virgin state acceptance of my so very not fresh-faced
appearance became crystal clear. Sometimes life’s lessons, or, messages from
God, or reinforcements of messages from God if you’d rather, come to you in
pretty funky ways; ways that, when you sit back and muse over how it all played
out, there’s just no mistaking that it WAS a nudge (or maybe even a hearty
shove) from The Three-In-One.
Up Next:
A Messenger in the Mall in the Manifestation of Mr. Mikey
Mrs. B
