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While having a conversation the other day about perimenopause and menopause with my 4.5 years-younger-than-I boyfriend, it dawned on me that I am getting old. I’m 48. Officially perimenopause age. Is it also a coincidence that the first time I ever googled “face lift” was roughly a week ago? (side note: I’ll pass on having my face sliced and pulled tighter)
Which kind of proves my point. America is obsessed with youth. Our superficial culture values youth and looks over age and wisdom. We have filters to make us younger in pictures. We can erase lines on our faces, chisel our bones exactly the way we like 😣, lift our sagging skin, plump up our lips, suck the fat out of our thighs and deposit it into our boobs, and spend a shitload to do so.
I’m unfortunately and honestly terrified of getting older. Every month I spend roughly $100 getting the grays colored out of my hair. Being too much of a wimp to have someone come at my face with a needle, I just spent $300 on an LED mask that promises to boost collagen production to make my skin look younger (read more about that here). I also recently paid $150 for a lash lift (totally worth it, lashes for days). That’s about the extent of my investments into looking young other than, of course, exercise, drinking a lot of water, eating and sleeping well.
I don’t want my joints to wear out, and I don’t want my eyesight to fully fail (I have 20/800 vision currently, not great). I want my skin to always look dewy and plump. But it won’t.
To be completely transparent (which is what my site here is all about), I relied a lot on attention from others to boost my own self esteem. It feels shitty to admit that, but if you’re raised in an environment that prizes you for your appearance, that’s how you turn out. I have worked a lot on this in therapy. Still, there are vestigial parts that hang around, and I find this fear of getting older to be, in part, a fear about just disappearing into the next phase.
But it’s not just aesthetics. We don’t value our elders like other cultures do. In America, aging is almost shameful, like you’re used up and cast aside. We don’t see old people for their wisdom, their beauty. We just see old people. We say things like, “damn, your mom was a fox.” Like she used to be hot when she was young but not anymore?
Why our obsession with youth? And why does beauty have an age limit? Other cultures revere their elderly.
Eastern cultures, for example, place their elderly on a pedestal and treat them with the utmost respect. Age is seen as wisdom, and eastern cultures encourage younger generations to treat their elders with respect, care, and obedience. Aging isn’t just a biological process; it’s a cultural one.
Over here in the less mature good ole U. S. of A, we place value on younger adults and pretty much disregard our young. I read an essay on aging that said, “This way of thinking stems from Protestant values that tie an individual’s worth to their ability to work and be an active member of society.”
That tracks, given the puritanical and Christian values on which this country was founded (barf). We’re also millennia younger than Asian/Eastern cultures, some of which were founded anywhere from 600-2000BC. So yeah, more wisdom over there. Old people have something to teach us.
Meanwhile back over here, youth is fetishized, and old people are quietly removed from the conversation and put in nursing homes, out of view. Aging almost feels shameful, like you’ve been used up, and society no longer has a need for you. You’re just kind of marching toward the grave.
This may in part be because death is so taboo in America. We don’t really discuss it much, and many of us fear death. Death is inevitable for everyone, but getting old just means it’s…. there. Once again, in other cultures/religions, death is not feared; it’s maybe even celebrated. Addressing death is very important in Buddhist philosophy. Death a natural part of existence and perhaps even enlightenment.
All of this is to say that, in my humble opinion, we ‘mericans just don’t get it. We prioritize the wrong things, like youth and youth equalling beauty; we see aging as shameful; we don’t talk about or really prepare for death. We’re fickle, and we have shiny ball syndrome, always distracted by the newest pretty thing. This culture feels so “young soul” to me.
And the Hollywood standard of beauty hasn’t helped us. We see older female (not male of course) stars literally cast aside while the next new young thing steps in. Fortunately it seems the tides are turning on this as many women are embracing their age and even going without makeup. We see you, Pam Anderson & Alicia Keys!
“Getting Old Sucks”
I have a lot of friends in their 60s & 70s. I’ve had many of them tell me, “getting old sucks.” Not just because you spend your day ferrying yourself and/or your partner around to various doctor visits, but also because the kids are grown and moved out, the family separated.
Just last week I had a conversation with my older neighbors (who’ve become my surrogate parents since I was orphaned in 2017) wherein they lamented about the fact that everyone in the US lives such separate lives. Kids grow up and move out; we’re all in our own separate houses; there’s no communal living anymore. They miss their kids whom they see a handful of times per year.
And on that note, multigenerational living isn’t uncommon in other cultures. Maybe your grandparents, parents, you, your spouse, and even your children live under one roof (or many roofs? Maybe you have an in-law suite). Everyone can contribute to the household bills, groceries, chores, and can lend a hand in emergency situations. For people who live solo, the burden of all these stressors rests on their shoulders alone. These daily living requirements add to the challenge of aging.
Humans are wired for tribal living and connection; isolation and loneliness raises your risk for premature mortality. In fact, loneliness has such far-reaching consequences that the health impact is comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, according to one study published in the journal PLOS Medicine.
It’s been my longtime dream to live in a commune. Buy a big plot of land, build a few houses, invite some friends, and make an intentional community. Everyone pitches in and helps. People grow food, make tinctures and soap and what not, raise animals and kids, that sort of thing. The concept of a village that was once just how it was now seems so foreign.
And nowadays, many Americans would recoil at the thought of living with their families beyond age 18, and many parents are psyched to kick their kids out at 18. We’ve evolved beyond multigenerational living, but has it really been for the best?
But back to getting old. Despite the complaints, I’m told the golden years are the best years. You know more stuff, give fewer fucks, step out of the hustle, know yourself better, know what matters. Would I want to be 16, 18, 21 again? Hell no.
Would I want to be 35? Maybe. But only if I knew then what I know now.
“I wish that I knew what I know now/when I was younger.”
“Youth is wasted on the young.”
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Love this article and would love being part of a multigenerational household, or even a golden girls group. But my friends aren’t interested or can’t afford it, I’m with a partner and I hope he lives longer than me, and I just don’t have a great big support network. But I sure love your idea. I felt great in my 40s. I think I felt like I was about 20 until I was in my mid-50s, past menopause. Now I’m in my mid 60s. My generation of women got cheated out of HRT. The 60s have been hard on me. OK now I am going to look up lash lift!
Senior women are totally invisible. I think that’s slowly changing. Menopausal middle-aged women are leading the charge. Do you follow Dr. Mary Claire Haver?