My AARP magazine arrived today…the October issue with Sally Field on the cover. She is great, and as the article said over and over, she’s still
a pretty powerhouse at 60. It was an inspiring story, but then I have
always been a fan of hers. As I was thumbing through, however, I then
found another article about Ann-Margret…still fit and sexy, thank you. Then another about Robert Duvall and how cool he still is. And let’s not overlook the spread about fashion models over 50 all looking swell.

Wait a minute…! This isn’t People magazine or Cosmopolitan.
Here is the biggest association of ‘older persons’ selling glamour,
celebrity cool, and all the same messages we’ve been getting all along.
Our hair color is different and we may have a few wrinkles (and perhaps
a degenerative condition or two), but otherwise we’re just the same
happy clams in our designer wardrobes, with our personal trainers and
our very exclusive combination of anti-aging creams and therapies.

It’s perplexing to me why there were no ‘ordinary’ people on
display: no inside exposés of nursing home neglect, no stories of
people desperately looking for meaning and purpose after retirement, no
tales of individuals striving to find love and a sense of being valued.
I admit that I love celebrity stories. I admire and appreciate anyone
who is still active, involved and making a difference as they grow
older.

I just don’t want all the models for growing older to be gorgeous
celebrities, ‘stars’ promoted as the same ‘beautiful people’ that left
me feeling slightly out of it most of my life. I’ve heard the “If only
I was as talented, rich, beautiful, intelligent, well-connected,
interesting and so on” conversation play out too many times. Those who
buy into comparing themselves with these glamorous icons of beauty,
fame and power end up despairing about their shortcomings and their
lives. Little wonder anti-depressants are among the top sellers in the
pharmaceutical industry these days.

Now the media-selling machine is starting to crank up for Boomers.
It doesn’t want to ever let us forget that we aren’t ‘there’ yet—we
need more potions, more of this or that special something to get there.
And if we need images to remind us of how ordinary we are, well then,
there are the beautiful people having champagne on their yachts and
looking fabulous. In my dreams, I still see Sophia Loren. Only now she
has gray hair, and I have to cash in my 401k to buy the Porsche that
will make me more desirable to women like her.

By my 60th birthday, I was finally comfortable in my own skin and
didn’t compare myself to others (at least not too much). I no longer
defined myself by who I wasn’t and what I didn’t have…I think I had
finally grown up or grown out of the consumer-oriented, “this isn’t
it”, need to get better and better rat race and could be truly happy
with life the way it is and with the way I am. As part of that
acceptance, I began to appreciate my age and to see the possibility of
creating my future as the best time of my life.

I know that the AARP has to sell magazines, but couldn’t they at
least run some stories about real people and show us how great life can
be for ordinary folks who are as successful and happy making a
contribution as Sally Fields? Then she can become an example of who we
are and can be, rather than an exception reminding us of who we are.