BeckySharper: To start us off on a totally superficial note, I am getting eyebags, y’all. It isn’t surprising—the women on one side of my family have big ol’ eyebags you could haul laundry in. Now, the women on the other side of my family have had everything nipped and tucked. I think they look kind of “off” but that said…they dont’ have eyebags.. I used to scorn the constant surgification, but now I wonder if I been blithely toeing the anti-surgery, “love your body” party line my whole life simply because it was easy for me to do so? Have I still subconciously bought into the idea that ageing makes women ugly and it is better for me to have tight skin? THE PATRIARCHY WORMED ITS WAY INTO MY BRAIN!

Rodriguez: Of course I am convinced the patriarchy has me brainwashed about what I *have* to look like. The thing about that kind of brainwashing is that it’s so hard to see from the inside. Maybe that brainwashing explains why I think I might be a little narcissistic about clothes and hair even were I a man. I’ll never have a way to know, though.

I’m 46. I’ve been coloring my hair like my life depends on it, at least since I was 30. Also, when I have money I do indulge in some cosmetic procedures. I do the dermal filler around my mouth. And I have a dark spot on my cheek I get chemically lightened. Although, last time I did either of those it was 4 years ago, so I suppose I’m not *that* obsessed with it. (or, I never feel like I have money.) So yeah, aging. I’ve been noticing.

veganmarcy: I’m 33 and I don’t fear wrinkles as much as I fear aging/tan spots and gray hair, and while I’m at it, big blotchy blue patches of varicose veins. Basically, whatever my mom has, although overall she looks very good for her age, even moreso since she went vegan. My mother went silver, then gray, than white-haired very young. My gran lived to her 80s and still didn’t have all gray/white hair. Unfortunately it seems I got my mom’s “Celtic DNA” as she calls her going grey so young, and not just her Raynaud’s.  Once I got in my late 20s, let alone hit 30, bam. Thick gray hairs poking up EVERYWHERE. Seeing as I have a penchant for hair colors and styles when I’m flush, at first dye jobs just happened to get things covered up without going out of my way to do so. But now that I can’t afford a stylist and have just been too busy and distracted to give a fuck about dealing with it at home, I’m back to occasionally yoinking out the ones that stick straight up outta my scalp like aging-detecting antennae. It’s enough that I can get gray hairs while still having acne, it’s too much. That’s my achilles heel for aging gracefully – gray hairs. I alternate going “fuck caring! fuck everything! fuckityfuckfuck!” with “dammit, I’d like to feel confident enough to get laid sometime this decade.”

MischiefManager: I recently turned 58. Aging is part of my everyday reality. I’m fortunate in 2 ways here: On the very best day I ever had, I was average looking, and I’ve had a life-threatening illness. So I’m less invested in keeping my looks than women who actually have looks to keep (grin) and I am very aware that the alternative to aging is dying.

I have no interest in plastic surgery of any kind. Again, part of that is because I’m not as invested in my looks as I would naturally be if they brought me social rewards. (I really don’t mean to sound snarky here, but I want to be clear that I’m not feeling sorry for myself because I was never a beauty. Whatever nature gives you, enjoy it!). I can understand the fear of losing one’s looks, especially in a society as fixated on youth as ours is. And I am not going to condemn anyone who makes choices different from mine. Feminism includes lots of different behaviors and attitudes. Becky, wanting to feel good about your body does not make you false to feminism. We all need to support each other’s choices in our personal lives. For me, not choosing plastic surgery is the same thing as not getting an implant after my mastectomy. I would feel like a coward if I did those, because I’d feel like I was trying to pretend that something was true that isn’t.

It’s as though nature is helping us detach from our lives as we age. our skin begins to pull away from our muscles, our stories and references are more and more rooted in the past

Rodriguez: That’s what happens during aging at some really high numbers. I’ve been observing at close range for a while now, since my parents are very old and live with me. The only way I can describe it concisely is to say that they are dwindling.

BeckySharper: My parents are in their mid-60s and in good health, but I have noticed the aging process starting to get to them. DaddySharper in particular has aged a great deal in the past few years thanks to stress and family tragedy, and all the sudden has developed a slump-shouldered old-man shuffle and just doesn’t seem to engage the way he used to. Dwindling is a good word for it.

Rodriguez: I just saw an article in NY magazine I think, where the author describes his mother’s terrible health, and what he does with his sister for his mother.

He used that phrase “dwindling”. It struck me as dead – on. He also said something that is most likely pseudo science but it convinced me anyway: that if you have lived a healthy life, and you have access to doctors and money, then you are in fact more likely to dwindle

He called it “a life worth ending”. Ouch!

BeckySharper: I had that experience watching three grandparents die over the last 5 years. They were healthy and very competent…until they weren’t. They llived to be 89, 90 and 90, respectively. But the last few years for all three of them were fairly miserable, with lots of chronic pain and weakening and loss of mobility and dignity (one grandmother died after four traumatic years with Alzheimers, which is every bit as bad as you’ve heard). The thing I took away from it is that there are worse things than dying. Which I realize kind of upends what MM said about not fearing aging because it’s the alternative to dying, but there is also a point at which dying can seem like an excellent alternative to aging.

MischiefManager: This is why we all need living wills and health care powers of attorney.

Rodriguez: OMG no joke. I can’t stress that enough. If anything is worth repeating on Harpyness it’s that. Also, I got power of attorney from my folks on their bank account. They’ve consolidated down to one bank.

BeckySharper: Even though I’m still young, I recently did a living will, and both types of powers of attorney. I have seen some really bad decisions made in my family regarding the care of sick and disabled relatives and I wanted to ensure that the person I want to make healthcare decisions for me is the ONLY person who will make them.

Generally speaking, I feel like it’s a given that women get forced into the caregiving roles for our aging relatives, and being prepared and having some idea of what to expect is the only kind of empowerment we’re ever going to have.

veganmarcy: I live with my retired mom and her hoarding tendencies have been very frustrating and lead to some really terrible yelling cursing arguments which reminded me why I lived so far away for so long. But then again, it’s gotta get done, and if not me helping then who? My brother? (Yeah right, he visits for the holidays and then gets to leave.) And as I remember so well from sorting out stuff after my grandmothers’ deaths…I just keep morbidly thinking better to sort it now than if/when she’s in a home or end of life. Sigh. Life always throws curveballs and other horrendous metaphors.

What curveballs have you been noticing as you age, or when it comes to the aging of your parents and family members? Are there any moments that have surprised you? Are there ways you draw on your female experiences or your feminism to cope? Please tell us in the comments!

But there was one friend who simply refused to give up her age. She was obviously annoyed and kept fake-joking: “I’m going to be 97!” or “I’m 100!” Cutie-pie grew frustrated, saying ever more shrilly “No, really! I’m going to be six, how old are you?” It got uncomfortable for all concerned. Eventually Cutie-pie’s mother, saw the problem and distracted her, but not until Party Pooper grumbled, “Doesn’t she know that’s an inappropriate question?”

My friends and I all shot each other “WTF? glances. Party Pooper is a fifty-something professional and normally an outspoken feminist. But she had apparently bought into the anti-feminist idea that a woman’s age is something to hide, at least, when a woman is her age. In fact, her being in her fifties is apparently such a shameful secret she had to hide it from an innocent five-year old, who I guarantee had no agenda at all.

It pissed me off no end. Not only was this woman being needlessly rude to a little kid, but she’s just successfully taught that kid one of Patriarchy’s Greatest Hits: Aging is shameful, because the older women get, the more useless, irrelevant, asexual and generally unworthy of attention they are. Way to represent for womanity, sister!

This issue hits home for me as well because of my own age. Next year, I will be 35, a birthday which is supposed to induce panic, particularly if you are unmarried and childless, as I am. There’s no end to the scary messages I get fed about this upcoming birthday.

After 35, it’s all downhill for my poor, neglected reproductive system! I’ll get desperate and baby-hungry! I’ll be infertile! Or if I do get pregnant, my children will have Down Syndrome!  Or worse! ZOMG, all is lost! If only I hadn’t spent my twenties building my career and rejecting marriage! After 35 I’m going to pay for my selfish, slutty feminist ways!

Never mind that at 34, I’m the happiest and most confident I’ve ever been in my life. Now’s the time I’m supposed to start lying about my age. One of my friends jokes about how she’s celebrated her 32nd birthday many times over–about seven times, by my count–so that she “never has to tell anyone I’m in my late thirties.” She’s clearly doing it because she’s sick of the negative messages she’s gotten from ladymags, Big Fashion, reality shows and the solicitously faux-concerned relatives who ask, “So do you think you’ll settle down soon? You’re not getting any younger…”

Well, you know what?  FUCK THAT SHIT. When I turn 35, I’m not going to lie about it. Or about 40 or 50 or right on up until I’m 100. The only thing worse than getting older is NOT getting older. I want a long life and I will be proud–and grateful–to tell people about it.

And shame on older women who perpetuate anti-feminism by lying–or hiding–their age. When women refuse to be proud of their age and experience, we play right into the ugly stereotypes, and pass them right along to younger women and girls.

Purty. Via srsalme @ Flickr.

What, that doesn’t sound fun?

The last time I got my hair cut, I realized that, at 34, I have my first grey hair.  Hairs, rather.  Two of them.  Right on my hairline, just about an inch to the left of my widow’s peak.  And they’re not actually grey, they’re silvery white.

And they’re awesome.  Barely noticeable, but awesome.   In the last few weeks, I’ve been keeping an eye on them, wondering when they’ll be joined by more.  I’m really really hoping for an beautiful white streak, like Susan Sontag, Bonnie Raitt, or the Bride of Frankenstein.  ”Pied Beauty,” as Hopkins called it.  It probably won’t happen, and it’s far more likely that I’ll just start getting random wiry greys that kill the elegant image I have in my head, but still, it’s something about the aging process I’m kind of quietly excited about.

Which got me thinking about aging, and how it is reputedly devastating to women, since of course culture tells us that our shelf-life is barely more than that of a banana.  (How old is “old” now?) I don’t doubt it has its challenges, because aging means changing, and changing always brings challenges, but devastating?  A life-threatening illness is devastating.  The loss of a loved one is devastating.  Not being able to get work–despite the fact that you’re more than qualified  but the poor economy and the shift in university hiring practices are preventing you from doing what you love and are trained to do so you’re facing penury and a life of jobs that require you to wear a paper hat–is devastating. (Ahem.)  Aging?  Not so bad, really.

So I was thinking about aging, and my beautiful silvery twins, and wondering what others are looking forward to about getting older.  I know we have readers from their 20s through their 50s, at least, so I’m very curious to see what sort of range of responses this elicits. It can be shallow or profound; physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, sexual, anything.

So:  What are you looking forward to as the months and years pass?  And/or, what about getting older has been a pleasant surprise to you?

Some things never change. Via SarahMC

As of Sunday, I will no longer be in my “mid-twenties.” At 27, I’ll be living in my “late-twenties” stage, nearing closer to that arbitrary age at which women are supposed to be embarassed to admit when they were born.

I approach my own birthday with some consternation. I abhor and reject the popular notion that women have a sell-by date, after which they become invisible and unimportant. But I know I will be held to the same sexist standard and I don’t like it. I have heard women say they enjoy the freedom that comes with invisibility. There’s a definite appeal to that. Then why does it trouble me to be subject to fewer cat-calls and come-ons than I was as a younger woman? It’s strange, as a woman, to watch your “prime” – as defined by patriarchy – slip away. That this thought occupies space in my head sickens me. Oh big P, you’re such a mind-fuck.

But our sexist society does not generate all my birthday anxiety. Birthdays are fraught with self-examination and reevaluation; they force you to look at what you’ve accomplished in the past and what awaits down the road. This one is really no different from the last, but they are all sort of flashing, blinking reminders that my time is limited! and I’d better make something of myself! And the older I get the more it seems no time at all has passed between them. I remember the single-digit birthdays, playing games in the backyard and getting nervous about sleepovers. And how my college friends always threw “secret” little parties for each other’s birthdays in the dorms. Birthdays are less remarkable these days (though the pressure to celebrate awesomely is second only to that on New Years Eve).

Additionally, if I am a year older it means my parents are a year older and I am that much closer to losing them. I value the relationship that’s developed between my parents and me as I’ve grown into adulthood, and I just plain love them both as people. Their mortality, in addition to my own, scares me. I don’t know if I want children but I always thought that if I did have kids I’d begin at 30, give or take a year. My dysfunctional body presents an obstacle to pregnancy, however. Since the chance that my tumor will disappear is exactly zero, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to have (biological) children anyway.

Birthdays are not supposed to be melancholic! I am excited about eating ice cream cake, and trying out the Diva Cup BeckySharper sent me! Does anyone else get broody on their birthday?

Which, counterintuitively, might be a Good Thing. At least, that’s what Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alison Lurie* discovered. Lurie recently penned a dynamite essay in The Guardian about how she was unceremoniously dumped by Big Fashion and the beauty culture:

Soon after I reached 60 I was abandoned by Vogue magazine and all its clones. Like former lovers who drop you slowly and politely because they once cared for you, they gradually stopped speaking to me. Without intending it I had permanently alienated them, simply by becoming old. From their point of view, I was now a hopeless case. They were not going to show me any more pictures of clothes I might look good in, or give me useful advice about makeup or hair.

At first my feelings were hurt. Hadn’t I loved fashion and been faithful to her all these years? Just as one avoids the songs that recall a lost lover, I stopped reading her magazines, even in a doctor’s office. As a result, I felt first panic and then a rush of euphoria. I was abandoned and alone, yes, but I was also free: after more than 60 years, nobody was telling me what to wear.

So Lurie cleans out her closet, getting rid of “everything too obviously ‘sexy’- that is, shiny and low-cut and tight and uncomfortable.” Oh Gawd, the relief she must have felt. She also gave up her monthly hair dye, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that her natural hair color was now silver:

This led to a wonderful discovery. White and grey hair go with every colour, including white and grey.

But it gets better.  As it turns out, Alison Lurie is my soul sister, because she immediately ditches that tool of fashion sadism I most despise:

I got rid of all my high-heeled shoes. I hadn’t worn them very often since I slipped on an outdoor stairway covered with wet leaves and broke my leg. I had already understood that if I had been wearing flat shoes that day I would have avoided a miserable week in the hospital and three months on crutches…although fashion magazines don’t admit it, high heels always slow you down and hurt your feet. Fashion pretends to be a feminist, but still makes it almost impossible for anyone under her spell to negotiate a subway grating or a rough gravel path, or run for a bus without turning her ankle.

Ah yes.  Fashion pretends to be a feminist. The operative word there being pretends. And once fashion stops pretending to care about you, you can stop pretending to give a shit about fashion, as Lurie and her friends discovered:

My friends made similar changes, all individual and all in defiance of fashion. All of us realised with joy that we could now wear the clothes we liked best.

While I’m always loudly proclaiming that women can be beautiful and sexy at any age–my family has many over-60 examples of this phenomenon–Lurie’s essay made me reflect on what it must be like to be freed entirely from that unspoken obligation to be sexy. When you’re over 60 and our youth-obsessed fashion culture posts a big DO NOT WANT sign on you, it must sting. Because, really, who wants to be told that?  It’s a bitter pill to swallow for some women, and Lurie does note that not all her friends have accepted their split with Big Fashion:

Alas, some…are still worshipping at the altar of Fashion, who has for ever turned her back on them.

What I liked most about Lurie’s revelation was that she wasn’t railing against our youth-obsessed culture, or against Big Fashion. She is, very simply and matter-of-factly, done with them. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, over it. She’s on to the next thing. Personally, I’m not. Not yet.  But I will be someday. And I’m really looking forward to it.

*If you haven’t read Alison Lurie’s novels, start with Foreign Affairs or The War Between the Tates.  You will not be disappointed.