At my men’s group meeting this weekend, my friend Vian was observing that as we aged, most of us middle-aged men seemed to be emerging from a kind of chrysalis and that we were in various states of becoming ‘butterflies’. After a few chuckles at the metaphor, we had to admit that, on the back side of our middle-aged crisis, we were a lot more mature, a lot more comfortable in our own skins and a lot more grateful, humble and serene than at earlier
Category Archives: Fearless Aging
Baby Boomer or Boomer Babe?
By Marilyn Kentz
Bio
Last year’s announcement that actress Demi Moore wed young actor
Ashton Kutcher hardly raised an eyebrow, as it would have twenty, or
even ten, years ago. Hollywood celebrities often lead the way when it
comes to national trends, and one trend is becoming increasingly
obvious: women over forty no longer consider themselves “over the hill”.
Whether the rest of the world is on board is a matter of personal
attitude. It’s not about trying to sex it up for some
Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo is a big city—the largest in Brazil and one of the largest in the world. From my point of view, it’s not particularly pretty, but it is alive with energy. On the weekend, I went to Parque Iberapuera, their equivalent of Central Park. Like most parks on a Saturday afternoon, it was filled with people of all ages, walking or jogging, enjoying this lovely oasis in the middle of tall buildings and endless residential streets.
I got to thinking about the culture here
The Knife
There comes a point in the life of a Boomer woman when she looks in the mirror and begins to gently pull her neck skin back to see what she used to look like. I’ve done this many times. Sometimes I’ll even use my hair clips to hold the thin, tender skin in place. Though I can achieve a thirty-something neck, I find it hard to get the natural, balanced look for the rest of my face. You see, if I pull the skin to tuck behind the ears, I risk pulling too much and then it’s the “Beverly Hills
N.O.P.E.
I want to create a new organization to stamp out stupidity and indifference and restore common decency and good will into society. I think I’ll call it the National Organization of Pissed-Off Elders (N.O.P.E.).
What’s pissing us off?
A lot more than just ‘aging’ issues like Social Security, pharmaceuticals and our sex lives.
First, it pisses us off that the people in charge are squandering away the
opportunities they had to make the world work, or at least be a better
place.
Is Ageism the Problem?
I was talking to a friend recently who was suggesting I commit this blog to defeating ‘ageism’ in all of its often subtle and insidious forms. I said, I don’t want to make this about being ‘against’ ageism for three reasons. First, if there is one thing I have learned in life it is that we get what we resist. Even Martin Luther King wasn’t so much against discrimination as he was ‘for’ equality. Secondly, I want to be ‘for’ the possibility of aging and that is as much about
How Old Would You Be…?
By Lauren Selman
Bio
When do you start to get older? After reading the comments about aging,
I ask, “When does aging begin?” Aging is placed in the context of those
entering their thirties and beyond, but for me, I believe the process
of aging began the day I was born.
When I was a little girl, I
was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and I simply responded, "I
don’t want to grow up." But the truth was I was growing up as I was
saying those words.
Wake Up Call
I got a gentle reminder last week of how precious and potentially fragile life is. I had a very minor medical procedure done that required outpatient surgery and sedation. When I woke up, everyone was smiling and assuring me all was well. Within the space of a few minutes, they were expressing concern because I was having some heart irregularities. It was all handled very professionally and, at the end of the day, I was lucky: it turned out to be one of those inexplicable anomalies that happen
Growing Older … with Love
People are my everything,
Senses reaching out, embracing someone.
Wanting to touch and be touched—to delight
In each small gesture and utterance—
Finding wonder in soft words
And love in my heart
I remember loving.
Never tasting the Sweet fragrance
of a soft belly in the Way I do now—
Feeling each centimeter of skin—
Aging fingers still capable and Tender
caressing each other until we shudder—
in sublime delight
I am more romantic now.
Vulnerable and open—
accepting love
without
Laughter
I notice I am getting more ‘age’ jokes in my email these days. Most of them are kind of silly: they’re either about leaky parts or real or imagined sexual fantasies among octogenarians (watching or wishing in all sorts of unusual circumstances, like learning to bounce your walker on a trampoline so you can peak at the nude beauty in the next yard). Like most humor, it is about people laughing at themselves or their situation. I don’t find most of them particularly funny, probably because