Today I turned 49 years old. Happy birthday to me!
It’s been a year of feeling my age. I notice the sun spots on my face and arms. I wonder how long it will take before the deep wrinkle that emerges between my eyes when I’m thinking becomes permanently etched into my face. I’ve started to see gray hairs. I’ve gone up a pants size.
Amidst all those subtle but real changes, I’ve also thought about all the ways I could resist these physical signs of age. I could avail myself of Botox and hair dye. I could change my diet, try a GLP-1 drug, or hire a personal trainer. I could experiment with all the “anti-aging” products Instagram offers me daily.
Instead, I’ve realized that I am “pro-aging.”
I don’t mean that I love the crow’s feet or the fact that I might never wear a short skirt again. And I certainly don’t mean that other people shouldn’t avail themselves of beauty products or fitness programs. I wear makeup and buy new clothes and workout regularly, and each of us will make different decisions about the line between caring for our bodies and obsessing over them. But I do want to champion growing older and letting my age show. I want getting older to be a gift, to myself and to those around me.
One of the most challenging aspects of living within the disability community has been learning to receive other humans as they are, and learning to celebrate both their limitations and their gifts. Rather than trying to fix other people, disability has been an invitation to love other people. And perhaps more importantly, disability has been an invitation to love myself, as I am, wrinkles and belly rolls and gray hairs and all. It’s also an invitation to believe that my appearance is not all that I am, but also that it says something good about who I am. That beneath those lines on my face lie the stories of laughter and tears, and beneath the padding on my body rest so many moments of celebration and conversation around tables filled with beloved people. So on a personal level, accepting myself as an aging human is a way for me to recognize the goodness of the days behind me and walk with gratitude into the good days ahead.
But the other reason I’m pro-aging has to do with wisdom. In an era marked by “artificial intelligence,” I want to cultivate the kind of knowledge that only comes from living a real life, experiencing real regret, loving and listening and learning from other humans. I want to cultivate intergenerational communities, where I am looking up to those older than me and pouring into those who are younger. I think about the wisdom Arthur Brooks identifies in his book From Strength to Strength, the wisdom that only comes after years upon years of learning. I want to cultivate that type of wisdom, receive it from others, and pass it along.
So for all my fellow middle-aged humans out there, here’s to growing up and growing older. May we steward these lives—body, mind, and spirit—in a way that honors who we are becoming. May we offer kindness and gentleness and patience to ourselves and others through all the mistakes we’ve made and all the ways we’ve learned what is good.
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