Women Aging Gracefully: Age Positivity in Midlife

This year, I celebrated kind of a major birthday. I had zero problems with it, but much of that is because I don’t feel my age. And much of that is a mental thing, because, let me tell you, there are days I feel like my body is falling apart and it would tell you it’s every single minute of my age. My mind though? It’s still skipping through Disneyland eating a churro on its way to ride Buzz Lightyear. There’s so much talk about aging gracefully, but are we really doing it? Is age positivity in midlife something we can realistically achieve?

What exactly IS aging gracefully?

I don’t know if there’s a universal definition. For me, it’s embracing midlife, finding a kind of midlife happiness that’s satisfying, realistic, and attainable. It’s being happy with what I can do, and adding goals of things I want to try. It’s less about the physical side of aging and more about the mental aspect.

But that physical impact of aging cannot be ignored. We can stay active, eat clean, use <expensive> moisturizer, get annual exams, and we still wake up one morning and our back feels like we tried to lift a car. We bend down to pick up something we dropped on the ground, and we regret it as we try to get back up. We walk into another room, and we can’t remember why. Time marches on, and with it, our body ages, no matter what we do.

Ageism is alive, well, and often encouraged, in a society where we have to work until we’re 67, 62 if we’re able to be financially ready. No healthcare breaks until then either. Getting a job when you’re in your 50s or older is exponentially harder than when you’re in your 40s or younger. Hiring managers are often younger than we are, and we face more challenges simply because of our age, no matter what kinds of skills we have. “Take a job or two off of your resume, so people don’t know how long you’ve worked and can’t do the math” is a tip I’ve been given a few times, but then I’m also hiding years of valuable, practical experience that could be pertinent to the position or give me an edge.

Then there’s the generalized stigma about aging. People think we need big buttoned phones, life alert necklaces, and stair lifts, long before they’re truly necessary. Younger coworkers think we’re luddites unable to utilize technology. (Years ago, early in my 50s, I was told by a coworker that I should “hang it up” and let a “fresh face” take over. She was fired weeks later for her 14th sick day in 90 days while I had taken one in an entire year. Age isn’t the problem; attitude is.)

Aging gracefully is for us individually, at whatever we choose. It helps us to enjoy our lives, feel better about them, and focus our energies where they’re needed. It’s also to help reduce the negativity feel about getting older. We can act as we want, how we want, without the worry of judgment of others. That’s worth everything, and it’s something I wish I’d learned earlier in life.

I do feel aging requires requires some intentional choices. I remember someone years ago told me, when she was probably late 50s, that it was time to start making “young legs” do the work. Not only do young legs not want to, nor need to, work for us, but it’s not good for us to give in. We need the activity. We benefit from it. The earlier we sit down and give in, the earlier we lose our abilities.

Are you tired of coloring your hair? Sick of getting botox? Just in general sick of trying to look younger just for the sake of others? I feel you.

We women are resilient. We’re strong, creative, and able to rise above. We can’t give up when we have a bad day if we want to continue to stay active. The minute I let my back pain take over, what next? I mean, there’s a level of therapeutic rest that’s necessary, but the more I sit, the stiffer I get. The stiffer I get, the harder it is to get up. It’s a vicious cycle, and one I’m not giving in to.

Age positivity is a buzzword, but it’s also got meaning. When I celebrated my birthday, I didn’t do a hashtag with my age in it. You’ll still see me very loosely referring to my age, which is a total copout, but I’m also not ready for the responses we women sometimes get when we mention our age. “You’re that old? Really?” is one I got when I was overly honest with an acquaintance recently, and I had to laugh…after I cringed, which is exactly why I don’t tell people.

I’m sure he meant it as a compliment. “You don’t look that old” is a double-edged sword though. On one hand, thanks! I don’t want to. But then I realize I’m playing into the stereotype that being my age is a bad thing. I can’t have it both ways.

I do want to age gracefully, but I also have a big serious case of IDGAF. Don’t like me? Cool. Cool. Don’t like my purple hair? Cool. Don’t like my skinny jeans? Also cool. (Just don’t tell me you don’t like Disney.) I am happy being myself, and it’s taken a lot of life to get me this far, and those years aren’t something I take for granted. I do have regrets, I mean, I learn from mistakes, but I also wish I hadn’t made certain ones.

In other words, I don’t age gracefully for anyone but me. I’m vain, I’ll admit I do care about how I look, but I want to age gracefully so I can enjoy my life without letting my age be more than it is. If going silver or no longer wearing makeup makes me happy, that’s what I’ll do, because I do it for me, not because society says I need to.

It’s hard to be consistent in applying this to all facets of my life. I’m using anti-wrinkle creams, I had a laser treatment done to help reduce some of those pesky brown spots we tend to start getting in our 40s-50s, and I do a gua sha treatment every morning to help contour my face. I want to be proud of my age, but I don’t need to give in to gravity or every issue I may face. I’m going to pick my battles, by ‘fixing’ what I can, deciding on risk vs reward, and learning to let go. There’s only so much time I want to spend on trying to extend my life or obsessing over every new issue.

What a struggle! But only if we let it. We can come to peace with the fact our bodies are aging. They won’t look like they did when we were 25…but we weren’t wise back then. We worried about what others thought of us. We tried on 11 outfits for a casual night out, and we did cardio for hours so we could fit into the best jeans. How exhausting! I mean, we had the energy then but how much time did we spend freaking ourselves out and beating down our self-confidence?

We can give ourselves permission to happily own our age, to see the positives of being in our 50s or above. We can appreciate all our bodies have done for us, that we’ve survived this long, and we can realize not everyone lives this long. The reality is that we all age. We all feel young and invincible, and then suddenly, we realize we have crossed over an invisible hump and we’re rolling down the other side, far too fast. I have no problem saying “no,” but when it’s the opportunity go do something, I’m frequently torn. That pervading feeling of “how many more times will this chance come” hits hard, but I also find myself enjoying being at home. Time is precious, and there’s suddenly so much I want to do.

So I try hard to get out and do it. I say yes to the things that excite me, that make me feel good, that I’ve been wanting to do. It’s hard to tamp down the anxiety of FOMO. Will this chance come again? Will I be sorry later? Once time is gone, and with it, opportunities, we can’t get it back. Part of aging gracefully, to me, is finding a balance to that. True wellness in midlife means we need to strive towards avoiding drama and tension if we can.

Aging gracefully is both inward and outward. Public and private. Mental and physical. It’s being what we want to be, saying no when we want, and not caring if people don’t like it…or even understand it.

Aging gracefully in midlife, or any part of life, is far more than our physical body. It’s allowing our wisdom and personal experience to supercede our old habits and “must-do” societal norms. It doesn’t mean we change overnight and drop all of our relationships; it’s evolving and growing, learning from ourselves, others, and seeing what’s serving us. Not everything does, so sometimes we move relationships a little further behind some others; this doesn’t make you a bad person, because there are ways to do this without being cruel.

Life is too short to feel chained to things that are draining you or holding you back, and we all have at least one or two of those relationships. We age faster if we’re stressed. Wrinkles, muscle tightness, sore shoulders, they’re all signs of tension. We can’t avoid all tension, nor should we, but we also can choose to not invite it in. Part of the reason I believe in age positivity, not just growing older with grace, is that we’ve earned the right to remove the negative when we can — without guilt. I’m not going to do all the work to be happy and at peace while letting someone else stress me out so much that I’m negating the work I did.

It’s okay to value yourself, and to prioritize your own happiness. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

As a midlife woman, what do you struggle with in regards to age positivity? What helps you to feel comfortable in your body?

embracing midlife

midlife happiness

age positivity