I follow a fine new groove under my eye and sigh at its sign. I am ageing. We all are ageing so to say that I’m ageing is recalling a statement that is mundane when unspoken but laced with shame as it leaves my mouth. This river has carried every person before me, and will continue to carry others after me – its gushing waters are inevitable, unstoppable, sometimes thrilling, sometimes stark and often sobering. I am sure that these lines, and dips, and creases have existed on my frame before now but there’s something about this moment that is redirecting my eyes and my mind towards the shift in a new way.
There is the physical: we hold our breath at the impending results of how our genes will fair up in the game of keeping youthful. You didn’t pick the cards you are holding and how strong your hand is waits impatiently to be revealed to both yourself and to your opponents – it hangs in the balance of time. In the waiting, you attempt to put down and pick up bonus cards that will soften the blow of your inescapable future; routines, ways of eating, vitamins, creams and serums that promise to protect you from what has been pitched as ‘the worst’. The presentation of ‘the worst’ in ageing is crass, it’s suffocating and it’s dishonouring. It disgraces what is natural and replaces it, nonsensically, with a fornicated image of beauty and grace that can never be reached – largely, because the accuracy of its measures are subjective and the final judge of its picture of excellence doesn’t tangibly exist. Our attempts at reaching peak acceptability are akin to a life of repeatedly jumping on the spot with stretched arms, trying to touch the tip of the sky as on-lookers simultaneously encourage and mock the impossibility of our efforts with shouts of “keep going! You’re almost at the top!”.
But really, isn’t that just the picture of what being a woman is?
To sit at the top of ageing is to provoke excitable, melodic gasps that ripple through a group as you sheepishly reveal how old you are. Before you respond, a split-second pang hits the middle of your chest, anticipating the expressions that will follow; surprise in a good way, indifference or surprise in a bad way. “Never ask a woman her age” has long perpetuated the notion that to grow older is something to despise and something to attempt, with all of your might, to hide. The impact of this indoctrination (let’s call it what it is) has robbed decades of people from the joy of living, incited deep-set comparison, competition and self-hate and encouraged a world of insatiable alterations that promise healing but only deliver more insecurity than before.
God love you if you look younger!
God help you if you look your age!
God bless you if you look older!
We have been told, in words and images, that the human progression of our 30s to our 40s, our 50 to our 60s, our 70s to our 80s and onto our 90s is an epidemic that must be stopped. It’s a deceptive folk tale that we all play along with – in varying degrees – but with a wholehearted commitment to the delusional cause of “not me! I will never die”.
There is the psychological: we drift through our youth with nonchalance and a quiet invincibility, meandering up the mountain of life with a little anticipation and a lot of naivety. It’s the kind of innocence that is pure, strangely secure and something that we all – at some point – will look back on with a pounding nostalgia of knowing less but expecting more. At the time, though, “I’ll tell you when you’re older” weighs heavy on our infant, teenage and adolescent minds like a chamber of secrets waiting to be opened at the elusive check point of ‘maturity’. Of course, this promise of knowledge to the keys of life fades more and more as we grow and realise that truly, no-one knows a thing. Children ache to be adults, adults ache to revisit childhood. Once upon a time, blissful ignorance seemed so offensive, but now, backtracking to the rocky roads of a youthful unknown is painfully desirable. This seesaw of wishing to be older versus yearning to be young again warps our memories, toys with our dreams and derails our ability to reach contentment. It’s the unavoidable tension of growing that exposes our struggle with accepting, enjoying and thriving in the here and the now.
But really, isn’t that just the picture of what being a human is?
Resisting my ageing is futile, time-consuming and steals me of almost everything. But I know that you know that I won’t stop trying – because you know that I know, neither will you.
🙌🏾