Getting Older, Staying Young
On the 'Wisdom Package': fading looks, confident writing
Last week a dear friend shared with me a beautiful poem by Hayden Saunier called The Wisdom Package. The poem is a humorous tribute to aging and a wonderful reminder that loss of sight, knee aches and forgetfulness come “absolutely free” (yay!) with the ‘wisdom package’ – that is, after all, an honour and privilege.
The poem made me smile, especially a week before my 48th birthday. I think I will replace the bleak word ‘aging’ with this much gentler description: ‘the wisdom package’. Hayden Saunier is of course right. You can’t have one without the other, and to age is indeed a privilege. As “an older person” (quoting my thirteen-year-old daughter) one can only hope to “grow VERY old and healthy,” so that we can spend as long as we can in the company of the people we love.
I have a lot of love in my life, and a lot of love to live for. The greediness for this love is what motivates me to stay in optimal physical and mental shape, as well as my insatiable curiosity to learn about so many things I still don’t know.
The day of my birthday began as any other day. I was awakened at 6.15am by my thirteen-year-old daughter politely requesting me to make her matcha (my alarm clock). A drowsy smile spread across my face as I replied, as I do every morning, “I’ll be happy to make you matcha, sweetheart.”
She knows that I will make her matcha, as I have done every morning for the past two years, but I love that she doesn’t take my matcha for granted and leaves me a window to change my mind. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” she always adds.
Of course, she is perfectly capable of making her own matcha, but she never does, because she says it doesn’t taste the same. It is devoid of “all the love” that only my matcha has. My fifteen-year-old says the same thing about the coffee I make her every morning. And they are right. I do pour a lot of love into those morning cups of matcha and coffee, because it’s one of the few things I still get to do for them. Not to mention that this small gesture almost always earns me a kiss and a “thank you,” followed by “you’re the best mother in the world.” An absolute bargain.
“What exciting plans do you have for your birthday?” my friends asked me. I had one plan that excited me very much: a day without any plans! The past month felt so insanely fast-paced that all I craved was a day free from planning, putting (more) pressure on myself and expecting anything.
All I wanted to do was to write, take a walk on the mountain, have a nice dinner with my daughters and maybe a spontaneous coffee with a friend. And this is exactly what I did. It was a perfect day.
As part of my morning reading ritual, I instinctively reached for Carolyn G. Heilbrun’s Writing a Woman’s Life, a book that I read over a decade ago, when I was still a married woman. I remember learning an important lesson from this book that I wanted to be reminded of again, now as a middle-aged, single mother.
I leafed through the book and my highlighted passages and exclamation marks.
On ‘letting oneself go,’ Heilbrun writes:
“The sense of conforming to the ideals of attractive womanhood is one that sustains many women in our culture as they grow older. To “let oneself go” is to resign one’s sense of oneself as a woman and therefore, in many cases, as a person.”
As women, we have been conditioned to place our self-worth on our physical attractiveness, and “for that reason it requires great courage to ignore one’s appearance and reach out, as it were, from behind it to attract and spellbind; it also requires great talent.”
I take this last statement as an encouraging challenge. While I find it difficult to celebrate wrinkles, knee ache, loss of sight and that looming menopause, I am looking forward to being valued for my creativity and intelligence – or more simply put, personhood. While I may occasionally miss my fifteen-year-old figure I could not appreciate at the time, I do not miss being groped on the streets of Tel-Aviv.
Carolyn G. Heilbrun’s book is an important reminder to me that as one door closes, an exciting new door opens: that of a writer standing confidently in her truth, no longer an ‘impersonator’ of society’s expectations, and the object of male desire and the male gaze. When “women are old enough to have done with the business of being women, and can loose their strength, [they] must be the most powerful creatures in the world,” says an Isak Dinesen character.
Heilbrun argues that perhaps this is why “only in old age, certainly past fifty,” some of the best women writers did their most confident, and exciting work.
Now, that is something I look forward to! And I have noticed, that now as that “older person” I have certainly so much more to say, and write about.
So, whenever I look in the mirror and see an aging version of my youthful self, I’ll remind myself to be compassionate, grateful and appreciate the wisdom package. And rather than try to cling on to a life and conditions I have outgrown, I will confidently and gracefully launch myself into the next phase of my life.
Here are some of the things I am looking forward to in the next year:
Completing the first draft of my book!! (Almost there)
Grow my Substack community and inspire through writing and teaching yoga.
Finish renovating my Budapest apartment. I feel an increasing need for a sense of ‘home.’
Support my daughters in building their own dreams. Make as many coffees and matchas as I possibly can.
Spend more time with the people who matter to me the most. Walks, coffees, dinners, and chats with those who are too far away.
Travel. I need my doze of sanity, culture, a ‘foreign’ language and some sunshine.
Perfect my Italian and Spanish. Read more in French.
Meet my ‘partner in crime.’ No, I have not given up on love and I think I have a lot of love to give.
These goals make me excited about the future, and also, young in spirit, no matter my actual age.
Some birthday highlights:
This newsletter is coming out on Sunday, so HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to all the devoted fathers out there!
I love how you find inspiration everywhere! You are already wiser than I was at 48, making difficult choices and overcoming hard times. I offer three words for the inevitable aging: laughter, hydration and moisturizer. And a belated very happy birthday to you sweet Imola! With much love.
Happy birthday, again! I absolutely loved this post. It inspires me every week to see what you publish - and I’m so grateful to have you and your words in my life. I love you!