International Women’s Day was March 8 and Mother’s Day is not until May, but I’d like to make a shout-out to the women of the generation that came before.
Eleanor Roosevelt said it well: “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”
Recently I took a mini vacay to the Bay Area, which included visits with my step-mom, Auntie Jeanne and Auntie Pat.
These women are in their mid to late 70s and I admire each one. They read books and have hobbies. None are shy to voice their opinions, have had meaningful careers and share their love freely. I have known these women all of my life and their vitality matches my memories of them at age 20, 40 and 60.
I hope that when I grow up I will have as much moxie and know-how.
Next month will be my birthday, and it’s a big one. A couple of months ago a friend and I took a walk across the Chico State campus.
“Wow, I hadn’t seen so-and-so for a while,” I said. “She’s looking older all of a sudden.”
“That’s the same thing people probably say about us,” my friend replied. “You just see me all the time and you see yourself in the mirror every day. You don’t notice the changes when you watch them slowly.”
That made me look in the mirror.
This impending birthday shouldn’t be a big deal. I might not even think about my age if the social media ads would stop advertising products for “older women” and AARP stopped sending me membership offers (AARP sends these via snail mail, because they know how to reach my demographic).
I’ve been thinking about this big birthday for so many months that I had mentally adjusted to the age. I had to do the math to remember exactly how old I will be next month. Luckily, I chose to laugh at myself rather than worry about early memory loss.
“Getting old isn’t pretty,” I sometimes think when I smear Retinol cream under my eyes. My mom has a skylight in the guest bathroom. When I visit, I put on my makeup in that harsh light and am surprised at the ratio of gray-to-blonde. Thank goodness for the 60-watt dull glow in my own bathroom.
But my perspective changed after visiting all those amazing women in the Bay Area. My Auntie Pat has been in the hospital three times over the past six months. She said her body is not being kind to her.
I don’t see Auntie Pat every day, so I noticed the changes since the last time I visited. She’s still recovering from the recent illness, and needs her cane more often. This didn’t stop her from feeding my younger sister and I carrot cake and talking for hours about this, that and the other thing. She talks with her hands, a family trait, and got giddy when she showed pictures of her new great-grandbabies. We had so much fun that our visit extended into the evening and we decided to drive to Niles Canyon for ice cream and pizza.
After visiting my two aunts and my step-mom, I realized that getting older is absolutely beautiful.
