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Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
"Art isn’t something you need an outside license or a paycheck to pursue. It’s a way of life. It’s a way of adding up what you feel and where you’ve been and what you fear and what you can imagine. It’s a way of seeing your life through a lens that makes everything — good and bad, confusing and clarifying, uplifting and depressing — valuable." - Heather Havrilesky, Ask Polly 11/28/18
I stumbled upon the Ask Polly column on The Cut.com a few months ago while sick with the flu and to say it blew my mind is an understatement.
The author Heather Havrilesky answers letters weekly under the name Polly and honestly, some of the topics she tackles are deep and thought-provoking.
In the column titled ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’, she advises 'Haunted', who has written in about how disappointed she is in her life, haunted by the things she had set out to accomplish in life but at the age of 35, feels she has accomplished nothing.
Haunted has moved many times to different cities, traveled, had relationships and jobs. She is currently unhappy with her current job and is at a point where she is tired. She has tons of debt, no friends, single and no children. And the kicker? She's a writer.
I said out loud to myself, "Am I reading something from myself?"
I used to be Haunted, literally and figuratively. In the past, I have said many times how I felt like I have not accomplished what I set out to do in my life. I'm now in my late 40's and never married or had children. I've always felt like I should have done so much at this point of my life. I was haunted by what I didn't do because it made me feel inadequate and at times, worthless.
But this is something that many of us feel. We base our timeline on our age.
We're told that by a certain age, we should have X amount of things done. We should be married. We should have children. We should go to college and/or be set in our careers by a certain age. I could go on. But guess what? Life almost never goes as planned.
"Shame is the opposite of art. When you live inside of your shame, everything you see is inadequate and embarrassing. A lifetime of traveling and having adventures and not being tethered to long-term commitments looks empty and pathetic and foolish, through the lens of shame. You haven’t found a partner. Your face is aging. Your body will only grow weaker. Your mind is less elastic. Your time is running out. Shame turns every emotion into the manifestation of some personality flaw, every casual choice into a giant mistake, every small blunder into a moral failure. Shame means that you’re damned and you’ve accomplished nothing and it’s all downhill from here."When I read that, I was completely mind-blown.
Shame. These feelings I have, they have a name. I never thought of how I was feeling as shame but it is. One of the mantras I live by is change your mindset, change your life. And the difference between living inside your shame versus looking at your shame with an open mind and heart is that you look at life through a different lens, which then determines how you live that life.
Polly goes on to tell Haunted how she can create a new life for herself by simply looking at her shame differently. By not being afraid to accept that while life is not perfect, it can still be wonderful.
"You need to discard some of this shame you’re carrying around all the time. But even if you can’t cast off your shame that quickly, through the lens of art, shame becomes valuable. When you’re curious about your shame instead of afraid of it, you can see the true texture of the day and the richness of the moment, with all of its flaws. You can run your hands along your own self-defeating edges until you get a splinter, and you can pull the splinter out and stare at it and consider it. When you face your shame with an open heart, you’re on a path to art, on a path to finding joy and misery and fear and hope in the folds of your day. Even as your job is slow and dull and pointless, even as your afternoons alone feel treacherous and daunting, you can train your eyes on the low-hanging clouds until a tiny bit of sunlight filters through. You are alive and you will probably be alive for many decades to come. The numbers on your credit-card statements can feel harrowing, but you can take that feeling and keep it company instead of letting it eat you alive. You can walk to the corner store to buy a newspaper and pull out the weekend calendar section and circle something, and make a commitment to do that one thing. You can build a new kind of existence, one that feels small and flawed and honest, but each day you accumulate a kind of treasure that doesn’t disappear. Because instead of running away from the truth, you welcome it in. You don’t treat what you have as pointless. You work with what you have."Havrilesky does an incredible job of issuing advice while being transparent on how she identifies with the person's feelings, including admitting her own flaws. This makes her a real person and not just someone writing a column for a major website who also has a book out. Everyone, even someone like Oprah, has their struggles.
We always tend to look at the end result instead of the journey, when looking at people. So it's easy to compare our lives to theirs and feel some kind of way about their success in comparison to ours.
"When you carry around a suspicion that there’s something sort of embarrassing or pathetic about you, you find ways to project that shame onto completely innocuous things. You find ways to tell yourself that everyone is laughing at you behind your back somewhere, possibly at a party where they are serving beautiful tasty drinks but you weren’t invited. You’re too old now. You’re no longer exciting or important. You don’t matter. You never really did. Shame creates imaginary worlds inside your head. This haunted house you’re creating is forged from your shame. No one else can see it, so you keep trying to describe it to them. You find ways to say, “You don’t want any part of this mess. I’m mediocre, aging rapidly, and poor. Do yourself a favor and leave me behind.” You want to be left behind, though. That way, no one bears witness to what you’ve become. It’s time to come out of hiding. It’s time to step into the light and be seen, shame and wrinkles and failures and fears and all."That last line! I'm done!
This year, my mission is to step into my power. I want to show up more for myself and others. I want to put myself out there more with positive intentions. I want to walk in a room with a positive attitude and be open to what awaits.
Does it scare the shit out of me? Hell yes. But if I am to live out this life of mine as fully as I can, I have to let go of my shame, my past (including past negative stories I told myself) and being afraid of the unknown.
This year has already kicked off amazingly and I keep thinking of my niece. She now watches over me, along with my dad and brother. And I can hear her voice in my ear, saying "Auntie, you got this!"
Typing that out makes the tears flow because she's only been gone 7 months. But as I learned when I lost my dad and then my brother, time does not stand still. Grief is painful but in order to live and keep moving, I have to learn how to carry that pain with me and channel it into something positive.
Honoring their legacy and continuing her work is what drives me. I'm going to be 50 next year but you know what? It's never too late to do whatever is on my life's to-do list. Gray hairs, pre-menopause and all. No wrinkles yet but I am not complaining! LOL!
Here's to living my best life and you living yours at any age. xoxo
"Some guy said to me: 'Don't you think you're too old to sing rock n' roll?' I said: 'You'd better check with Mick Jagger.'" ~ Cher
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| Hey, I'm over 40! **gasps** |
I was watching The Ellen Degeneres Show this week and she talked about how her age is always stated when she is mentioned in the media. And she wondered why the media felt the need to always mention her age instead of her accolades and achievements.
Hell, why not mention her job title or even her eye color? Nope, just her age. And for the record, she is 60, to which I was shocked to learn. She looks damn good.
I also noticed that when I typed in her name on Google, the first suggested search that came up was "Ellen Degeneres age" above her name.
Actress Julia Roberts, Ellen's guest during this show, also expressed her annoyance with news outlets front-loading their stories with a celebrity’s age. It rarely happens with younger folks or even older men. Julia is 51.
So why is a woman's age such a big deal?
Peep this.
- Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games".
- E. L. James was 46 when she wrote "Fifty Shades of Grey".
- Iris Apfel is a major fashion icon at age 97, having been the face of Australian brand Blue Illusion at age 94 and was a visiting professor at University of Texas at Austin at the age of 90.
- Ann Dowd earned her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination at the age of 61 for her role as Aunt Lydia on Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale.
Now I ask again, why is a woman's age such a big deal?
I recently saw Ann Dowd speak at Glamour's Women of the Year Summit and was in awe. It was that day that I decided I wasn't going to hide my own age anymore and not be too hard on myself for not getting everything I wanted accomplished by a certain age.
She spoke about getting her big break late in life (in her 50's) and how she learned to create her own timeline. We are fed this notion that we have to do all these things before a certain age because God forbid we do some amazing shit when we're "old".
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| Me doing some amazing shit at the age of 47 |
What is "old" exactly? Just like size, age is often judged by its number and we are more than a number.
Getting back to me (yes, I was deflecting cause I fully admit this is hard)... My name is Marcy and I am 48 years old.
Yep, I'll be 50 in two years and I have been struggling with that BIG TIME. 50 seems like such a major milestone where you are now crossing over from young to old. It's that median mark where now you're like, damn, I am a half century old.
I don't feel 50. I mean, what is 50 supposed to feel like? Or look like?
I see other women who are my age or around my age and some look much older than me and some don't. I am blessed to not look my age and still get the dropped jaws when I tell people how old I am. So for me, it feels weird to get older because time seems to be flying yet I feel like I am standing still. Does that make sense?
I've also encountered ageism in the sense where I have been told I shouldn't do this or that, shouldn't wear this or that, and etc. I just want to know who created these rules and why should we follow them?
So many questions and no answers. But I have learned that the answers to these questions are subjective. WE ARE WHO WE ARE. WE FEEL WHAT WE FEEL. And age should not have anything to do with that.
Sure, from a physical standpoint, things are changing. I have menopause to look forward to (NOT). I'm now wearing reading classes because after spending most of my life with almost perfect sight, I am now far-sighted. I suffer from arthritis and now have to get extra tests at the doctor to check for illnesses that happen after a certain age.
However, from a mental perspective, while I feel like I am wiser and more self aware, I still feel youthful and free. I still feel like I can conquer the world and I admit I still love to get on a swing at the park or run around freely in an open space. Plus, I still have my hot mess moments where I sometimes question what the hell am I doing.
The notion that you have your life together when you're a certain age is BS. Life is a journey where you are always figuring things out. I think as long as you are open to the possibilities and have committed to nourishing your relationship with yourself, it's okay to not have it together.
Nothing is perfect and your age should not be some indicator of life and where you should be. Self love is a lifelong journey that never stops and it shouldn't. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important one you will have in your life.
So I remind myself daily of what Ann Dowd said on that stage...
Keep the love story alive; the love of what you do. Celebrate the small wins. Stay humble and grateful for every single day and everything that happens in that day. It will suit you and support you. Always remember the answer is within you because your heart and soul are your compass to life. Don't obsess on the How. Just remind yourself in the mirror that you are in charge of who you are.
Yes, I am 48 but that doesn't define who I am by a long shot. Get ready 2019! I am fully prepared to do some more amazing shit going into Year 49.
And maybe I should start thinking about what I will do to usher in Year 50. Turning a half century old is kind of cool, when you think about it.
Read Ann Dowd's speech here on Glamour's website. #BeInspired #ICertainlyWas
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