Women, Can’t We Just Be Old Already?

A friend of mine’s mother is in her 80s and sharp as a tack. During a recent visit, my friend asked if her mom would like a ride to her hair appointment. “Shhh,” her mother hissed angrily, “I don’t want your father to know I color my hair.”

This struck me as somewhat sweet. But, really, how long do we believe others will believe we don’t color our hair? How long do we expect those around us to accept that our preternaturally smooth foreheads and plump lips are simply the results of lucky genes?

At what point in history did we become so youth-obsessed that we agreed to take any steps necessary to preserve our own? At some juncture, we decided it was no longer okay to let our hair choose its own hue, to allow our hips to widen and our boobs to sag, to embrace the muumuu and not the string bikini.

I’m all for exercise and eating right. And those are practices we should smartly continue as long as we are lucky enough to still be on this earth. What I have more trouble embracing is the pressure we put on ourselves to fit into our daughters’ clothes, to attack any wrinkle with fillers and anti-aging snake oils, to treat growing older as if it’s an enemy we actually have a chance of defeating.

Recently, a 50-plus client asked rhetorically, “When is it okay to just let yourself be old? When my mother was my age, she was old and she was fine with it.” And I completely got her point.

Midlife women who “go gray” are deemed brave. Those who choose a soft-serve twist instead of flat abs are appraised with a mix of admiration and sympathy. Women who allow themselves to truly embrace midlife — and/in all its gravity — are a source of bewilderment for those who have taken up the sword. And, make no mistake, it’s other women who are doing the judging.

If you think I’m writing this from a perch of aging righteousness, let me say, with all due respect, you are dead wrong. My hair is colored and highlighted. My bathroom vanity is crowded with so many anti-aging products I could restock the shelves of any drugstore chain at a moment’s notice. I still have clothes I can’t bear to part with which, I know, will never again fit. At this point, they serve more as mementos of what used to be. They’re proof of what my body once looked like.

It’s hard to say when it all starts exactly. For each woman who chooses, there’s a moment (or epiphany) when she decides she isn’t going downhill without a fight. Is it those first bothersome grays — wherever they show up? The parallel lines (“elevens”) between your eyebrows that are there to stay? The observation that your butt is relocating to more southern climes?

For me, it began when people stopped expressing surprise that my kids are as old as they are. When my oldest son was about 15, I waited outside a dressing room while he tried on some clothes. When he was done, a man who had been waiting entered the dressing room and quickly came out holding my son’s sunglasses. “Excuse me,” he said, “I think your boyfriend left these behind.”

My son was mortified. I was flattered. That kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore. Ever.

At some point you realize: It is a distinct possibility that I will get old and, in the process, look old. But, you ask, isn’t there an arsenal of ways to hold the fort before I surrender to the ravages of aging?  (May I point out the word ‘ravages’ is only used in the context of getting older or war?)

According to a 2014 TODAY/AOL survey, women spend approximately an hour a day working on their appearance, which translates to two weeks a year. In addition, adult women worry more about their appearance than they do finances, health, family/relationships or professional success. According to the survey: Whether they are engaging in “fat talk” or “old talk,” 77 percent of adult women…complained about their appearance to someone at least once in the past month.

So, simply said, we think more about how we look than almost anything else. And why wouldn’t we? We’re bombarded daily with reminders that to be young is to be viable and that there are easy! affordable! things we can do to cling to that viability. But besides the newest magic face cream, we’re subjected to public opinion about the appropriateness of our hairstyles (Are you too old for long hair?), our denim choices (Is it time to stop wearing “skinny” jeans?), and whether yoga pants are suitable for any woman over 25.

Are our only choices letting ourselves go or chasing waistlines we haven’t seen since 1995? These are the kind of choices that reduce women to our physicality rather than highlight our strength, stamina, and smarts.

If your physical signs of aging are your primary concern, then, frankly, you’re living a blessed life. So maybe it’s time to spend those two weeks a year doing something with real returns: take a vacation, get your affairs in order, volunteer, stump for the politician of your choice. Instead of more time in front of the mirror, look toward enriching yourself and the world. And do it proudly — one well-earned smile line at a time.

Previously written and published by Abby Rodman on abbyrodman.com