Thoughts on Getting Older
This is 47
Yesterday, I read an essay by a 38-year-old mom, called “This is 38.” This is midlife, she said. Alarm bells went off. I thought about it on and off all day, and by the time I was getting ready for bed, I had half this post written in my head.
Because something irks me when I read pieces of this sort (even though I think the writer, Lindsay Mead, who blogs at A Design So Vast, wrote some nice stuff). What gets under my skin are the attitudes that linger and lurk behind what seem simply like sweet sentiments about getting older and/or about being a parent as one gets older. This particular essay is an offshoot of a series that the Huffington Post did about various kid ages called This is Childhood, by parents waxing poetic about what those ages meant for them and their growing kids. Nice, I guess, but still I get frustrated and kind of grumpy with the wistfulness around discussions of age, no matter if you’re talking about a 38-year-old mom, or a 10-year-old child.
Because, folks, it’s age. It’s not fixed in time; it’s a moving target. The moment you list all the things you’re nostalgic about, they’re gone. I’m reminded of the final episode of one of my favorite TV shows, HBO’s “Six Feet Under.” Claire, the youngest of the three Fisher siblings, a photographer, is moving from L.A. to New York, and is snapping a photo of her family on the steps of their home before she leaves. Her older brother Nate (who happens — spoiler alert — to be dead) appears over her shoulder and says, “you can’t take a picture of this; it’s already gone.”
The other day, I turned 47. Which feels old, unless it doesn’t. It happened kind of fast, the space between 36, when I had my first child, to now. I remember 40, still changing diapers and driving to daycare, feeling like a blip. I do tend to do a lot of in-my-head adding and subtracting around age, as I wrote about in this guest post, Older Mother Math, over at Caren Chesler’s blog, The Dancing Egg. So, I’m 47 with a 10-year-old, and my mom was 47 with a 27-year-old (my sister, who turns 50 tomorrow and looks like she’s 35, if that 35 year old is in awesome shape). You see? It amounts to little more than an idle mental exercise. My mother grew up with her oldest child; I grew up first, and then had a child. There’s no nostalgia, there are only facts, and the life we’re living right now.
What’s the point of wistfulness about age? What is the alternative? You move forward, because what happened thus far is, to quote Nate Fisher, already gone.
There are places my mind goes when I am tempted to age-related thoughts:
I can say that my kids keep me young — dragging out that old trope about how chasing around two young boys keeps my energy up. But in truth, a lot of the time, they’re chasing after me (I compel them to ride their bikes alongside me while I run, for example, when they’d rather watch TV).
I can talk about winning a genetic lottery — I come from long-lived women on both sides of my family, and we appear to age well.
I can tell a funny story about a young woman I met, a 21-year-old when I was 27 and who gasped — literally gasped — when she found out I was that old. “You look so good for 27! I hope I look that good when I’m 27!” When I think about that young woman, I have to laugh. At that time I looked — and more important felt — far better at 27 than I remembered feeling at 21. I felt more me. When I look at photos of myself at 21, it’s almost as though I can see fuzziness around the edges, like the image isn’t clear, the picture of who I really am.
Maybe that picture still isn’t 100% clear, which may also be why I am not wistful about the passing of the years. I wish I had more years ahead of me than I do behind, sure. I hope, fervently, that I get to see and hold grandchildren and watch them grow. But wistful? As my Great Aunt Nina is fond of saying, age? It’s just a number. Nina, by the way, is the last surviving sister from my grandmother’s family. She is 83. She looks like she’s 65. And acts like she still has a lot left to do. Maybe that’s the key. No time for wistful. Move forward.
The past is already gone. The present is here for a moment only. It’s the future that really counts.
July 2, 2013 @ 12:48 pm
I am with you on this,and I am so tired of the media msgs that seem to imply that women have a “sell by” date or that we should never move beyond a certain age. My birthday was yesterday. I embrace it. At this point — adulthood — age has more to do with health than numbers anyway. Some of that we can influence, some we can’t. Either way — enjoy today!
July 2, 2013 @ 1:22 pm
Sorry, but I get wistful. It’s my nature. You’re right in that age is a moving target, yes — until it’s not. It’s moving only when you still feel there’s a wide berth of time on both sides of that number to play with and float between. But for me now, age is not a balloon drifting along anymore, it’s a series of doors I keep have to keep opening and closing, and boy, do I miss the other side of 47. I miss that balloon drifting through my 20s and 30s. I miss being pregnant. I miss my babies. I do love the life I have now (and all that’s ahead of me), but I am most definitely wistful about the what’s over and gone… yea, it’s just my nature.
July 2, 2013 @ 1:25 pm
Laurie, I hear you. I miss some things, too. I actually miss NOT having had babies earlier, or not having had more, or not remembering the times with babies when it was present and real. There’s always wistfulness, I’m not immune. I just don’t want to, now in midlife, indulge in it so much that I’m more focused on what’s gone than what’s ahead.
Denise
xx
July 2, 2013 @ 1:22 pm
Denise, this is such a nice essay on the last taboo: aging. I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older, I think less about the past and the future: my goal has become to actually live–truly be there–in the present. It is so difficult, and yet it has brought me more happiness than I’ve ever had before in my life.
Best, Susan
July 2, 2013 @ 1:23 pm
Thank you, Susan, and nice to hear from you! If you work out the trick to saying in the present, let me know, okay?
Denise
July 2, 2013 @ 1:42 pm
Denise, thanks for writing this. Now that I’m past 50, I get a bit weary at women in their 30s talking about being at “mid-life.” Please. They needn’t be so quick to grab for that phrase. It will come. There’s too much living to do in the decades to come for them to start getting to nostalgic before they’re even 40.
July 2, 2013 @ 1:45 pm
Thanks, Kathy. I sometimes wonder if there isn’t a little bit of competition to see who can moan loudest about getting older? We rush to grow up when we’re kids, right? And then I think a lot of people get past 21 or, I don’t know, 30, and start thinking the best of times are behind them. I can never remember thinking that way. I distinctly recall being in high school and thinking that this was barely the beginning, whereas there are plenty of 18 year olds who seem to really believe that this is their peak.
Denise
July 2, 2013 @ 2:50 pm
Denise,
I really like your reminder that life is right here and spending too much time being nostalgic about what’s already gone robs us of the richness of now. I am sorry if my piece seemed like moaning about getting older though (responding mostly to the last comment) – that was definitely NOT my intention at all. I only meant to capture what I experience right now, which by the way I absolutely, utterly adore. I didn’t mean to be complaining in any way and I apologize if it came across that way.
xo
July 2, 2013 @ 4:29 pm
Lindsey,
Thank you for coming by and commenting! In NO way did i think you were moaning! My earlier comment about that wasn’t about you. I thought your post was very nicely written, in fact; it’s just that that whole wistful-about-age sentiment strikes me in a funny way so I had to write about it. thanks again,
Denise
July 2, 2013 @ 2:58 pm
Nice piece, Denise. This particular line struck me: ” My mother grew up with her oldest child; I grew up first, and then had a child.”
Of course it struck me. I, too, grew up first, and then had a child. Except that I still haven’t fully grown up. Sure, I’m not a 20-something having babies, like my mother did (and I was the oldest, so she was 22 when she had me). It’s hard to imagine doing that, knowing what I was like at 22. But even now, at nearly 50, I still feel I’m learning as I go — albeit I’m learning different things than I learned in my twenties and thirties. I now know I didn’t have to be so precious about my career choices and ‘oh, oh, what am i going to do with my life,’ or all those other idealistic thoughts I might have had as a 20-something — about life, about politics, about human nature, about what I was going to be able to accomplish. But I’m still yet to learn how to live a life contentedly, joyously, courageously, less self-consciously, how to feel a moment and not look forward, backward or sideways. I still feel there’s a lot I need to learn. And I hope my last 30 or 40 years is long enough for that education.
July 2, 2013 @ 3:10 pm
Denise – Love the idea of age as a moving, constantly shifting thing. And I do believe it’s all in your head. I’m happy to have been born at the tail end of the baby boomer age, because I’ve always felt that the “in age” is a few years ahead. Guess it all comes down to marketing!
July 2, 2013 @ 7:09 pm
What a wonderful post and wonderful thoughts and comments from readers. I just had my 47th birthday the other day, too, just a few days after my daughter’s 5th. I do that math and feel the wistfulness, maybe it brings a few perimenopausal tears to the old eyeballs. But age truly is just a number, and living in the present brings joys that can wash away any regrets of the past or worries about the future.
Hurray for Great Aunt Nina – I’ll keep moving forward.
Earworm for you all — Dory singing, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”
July 2, 2013 @ 7:13 pm
Melanie, thanks! And happy birthday — I guess we’re pretty close (mine was 6/28). Great Aunt Nina is indeed a hoot. A tough, prickly broad, but a hoot nonetheless. My grandmother (who would be 101 if she were alive; she died at 95) had several sisters, all unique and true survivors. Last winter, we lost the last two besides Nina within a month. One, Aunt Angie, was 92. She buried two husbands and her only daughter and she colored her own hair fire-engine red and wore stiletto shoes and crazy, crazy jewelry almost until the end. Talk about keeping swimming!
Denise
Denise
July 2, 2013 @ 10:30 pm
Happy Birthday to you as well — same day as my daughter and two days before mine (can I say Nyah Nyah I’m younger or does that just prove I missed the entire point of your post?).
Oh to meet your family, even in words. Fabulous! Fire-engine red hair and stilettos, even after everything she had been through. They don’t make tough old (prickly) broads like that any more, do they? Sorry for our loss as they sound like they coloured the world.
July 3, 2013 @ 2:15 pm
I’m 34. I got married at 23, had my first child at 26 and my second at 28. Along my group of friends are a 45 year old with a seven year old and a 3 year old, and a 27 year old with an almost nine year old. My very best friend is finishing her phd this summer and will start trying to get pregnant this fall. One of my other old friends has a child heading into high school. The fact that we are all different ages and at different stages when it comes to kids hasn’t mattered much.
However, I do feel wistful. Not because I wish I was younger (although it would be nice to not be so stiff in the morning) but because time goes by so fast. It feels like just yesterday I was having babies. Now they are almost 9 and 6. And because I had them young, I have a lot of time to fill once they are out on their own. It’s a good time to think about what I want to do next?
July 7, 2013 @ 8:19 pm
Oh thank you. It’s not that I don’t get wistful, but I get so sick of people being all maudlin about it. My oldest just graduated high school and you and I were born the same year and I was amazed at how everyone wanted me to be in tears about how my baby’s all grown up. Of course I have those emotions, but wouldn’t the alternative be so much worse? And it’s not like I didn’t know this would happen! We are such a sentimental generation, and I don’t think it’s emotionally healthy.
July 18, 2013 @ 1:21 pm
Dear Denise,
I find this funny because I’m slogging through the second half of ‘mean moms rule’ (which is other wise a great book, and I do want to finish, just for the moral support part) and being completely hung up on the age-related theme of “O tempore, O mores!” — about how much better it was in the old days. In your book, you keep saying “our moms didn’t…” The most recent one is “or treat every meeting or get together as a reasonable time to eat…” It’s like you never heard off coffee cake or Dr. Spock or read Erma Bombeck (“In general, my children refused to eat anything that hadn’t danced on TV.”) Ma’am, I lived through the 1970s; I was a child in the 1970s, just like you, and there were all kinds of pressure to parent a particular way, to produce the perfect child, etc. etc. I’m not sure what the difference is these days– maybe its that we *are* more cliche-y, or that we parent more in isolation, or that there are just fewer parents doing things at the same time (which there are). Or that more of us are struggling to become parents, so it feels more intentional. Maybe it’s the expectation that we should never take our eyes off our kids until they leave for college. Or maybe it’s a little of everything. (P.S. they did so sell sippy cups for toddlers in the 1970s. Of course in those days, the grown-up’s cup holder was the kid in the front seat next to them holding their open cup of coffee… Nothing like arriving at school drenched in coffee.)