Something to think about?

“Once we realize the extraordinary power we have to compose our lives, we’ll move from passive, conditioned thinking to being co-creators of our fate.” ~Jason Silva

    Biological: Living Organism      Chronological: Calculated with the passage of time

I just read an NY Times article from June 2018 titled “The Glamorous Grandmas of Instagram. “About vamping and eye catching clothing, alive, vibrant, fun and full of life older women.”  I loved the article and the pictures of these dynamic women that I admired. And I am one of them. I am 70~SEVENTY YEARS OLD. One of the women stated  “I’m not 20, I don’t want to be 20, but I’m really freaking cool. That’s what I think about when I am posting a photo.” I LOVE THIS TOO! And another part of the article stated “these women in their 70’s and 80’s are taking on matters of aging with an audacity-riveting style- their mothers might have envied.” 

This was the sentence that got me thinking about my mother. She would not have envied this. She would have been horrified. As I quote statements from this article I will now quote one of my mothers statements to me at my ripe age of 28~ Dee (my family nickname)  “Do NOT tell anyone your age, ever!” And I would say why mom? And her reply was “Because then “they” will be able to figure out MY age!” And there you have it. Age, women, shame, secrets. All in one sentence. My mother lived to be 72 years young. She was a beautiful woman who was scared a lot. Afraid to break out of the life that was sketched out for her by the generations that preceded her. But that enjoyment for life was alive inside of her. I saw it! I saw it in the way she took pride in her clothes and jewelry, The way she wore her makeup and had her nails done. The way she would walk somewhere everyday and each week travel into Manhattan by bus and train from her Queens apartment to walk around the city and have lunch in a small diner on E.59 Street. She would mingle with all the people on the streets and the owners of the diner knew her. This was her vibrancy, her Joie De Vivre.

She did instill in me the idea that age was not to be shared, was something to hide and also fear. I also believe that this was because of her generation and how things were so different for a woman born before the great depression of 1929. I can only project and try to figure this out from my own lens of experience and will really never know what motivated her to say or believe this. Was it a fear of aging? A fear of growing old and feeble? A fear for the loss of her vibrancy and potency as a woman? I imagine all of those things and more. And the way I organized myself around age and aging was to never really be connected to a number, hence, chronological aging. I think I dissociated (a therapist term that I actually don’t even use but it felt like the correct word for these thoughts) from the concept of biological aging. So I just took on the feeling of no age~no worry. I can do anything I want to do at any age because I am actually no age. LOL! This really wasn’t a conscious thing but as I tease apart this article and my thoughts I am realizing that I really did this. I am not that attached to my birth date. I don’t really celebrate my birth date. I do acknowledge the day I was born and have a special feeling for that particular month and day but I don’t do much else with that day than I would do on any other day of the year.

I am writing this post on Thanksgiving evening. This is another day that I don’t think much about. I like to be in thankful appreciation for each day that I awake and breath. This is not a flippant statement.  Each day when my eyes open and I realize that I am back in my physical form breathing and ready for another magnificent day in my life I consider myself to be re-birthed.

So being 70 years old right now is a thrilling adventure of aliveness and fun and expanding thinking, which by the way has been most of my life. I don’t see myself slowing down much soon. I will never retire because I LOVE what I do. I will never stop traveling, I will never stop learning and taking workshops. I will not stop facilitating workshops and retreats, which by the way I am just getting started on a new retreat schedule that will start sometime in 2019.

Age as a mind set? Age as a number? Age as a feeling? I have no idea what it means other than the words and thoughts we attach to what age and aging means to each of us.

“Age is a matter of feeling, not of years.” ~ George William Curtis

For me Age Doesn’t mean: I will be ill, I will slow down, that I will need to stop doing certain things because of my age, that I will dress differently or age appropriate clothing~ whatever the fuck that means!

What are your thoughts about age and aging? I am sure you have given this some passing thought. Ha! That’s funny because I don’t think there is a person over the age of 15 who hasn’t given aging a passing thought. You may not want to admit this but no one is looking or they are too involved with their own thoughts and questions about their own aging life. So go ahead and take some time and breath into yourself and your life and just for this moment stop and allow yourself to touch those parts of you that are here right now reading this and having a feeling sensation in this alive body and connect with that feeling sensation. YES! You are here right now breathing and living and knowing that you can determine and discover yourself over and over again in each moment. That you can choose the way you want to think and feel. IT’S all your choice!  

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” ~ Oprah Winfrey