Does This Beach Make Me Look Old?

By Lisa

I joke about getting older, but the truth is, I don’t feel old.

On the contrary, at age fifty-nine, I feel as if I’m entering my prime.

So I’m either delusional or insightful.

I’ll leave the choice to you.

But let me make my case.

I’ll begin not by talking about myself, but about my girlfriends, all of whom are my age. We’ve been friends for many years. And when I look at the things they’re doing, I realize they’re in their prime too. In fact they’re more primy than I am.

My friend Franca runs every day and lifts weights, and she’s about to run her first marathon.

I’m going with her, to cheer.

That’s how I work out, by cheering.

My friend Paula is going on a trip to New Zealand with her husband and is planning on hiking twenty miles. She hikes every day here at home and has hiked the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.

They’re Grand!

And my friend Nan trains horses and can ride anything with four legs.

Not bad for the Middle Ages, are they?

They aren’t what I thought the fifties would look like when I was growing up, and I don’t think it’s just that my perception has changed because I’m in my fifties.

I think the fifties have changed. Since the way we saw them, back in the fifties.

And it’s not just physical activity. In fact, we’re better in many other ways. Paula travels the world, Nan rehabs houses, and Franca donates her time to help children with special needs.

We’re trying new things.

Wonder why?

I think we women spend so much of our lives taking care of other people that when the kids grow up, we come to realize that it’s time to truly take care of ourselves, and once we make that decision, our lives change.

More accurately, we change our lives.

I’ll speak for myself, because I know I have, but it’s been part of an evolution. For example, writing is my favorite thing in the world, and I think I’m getting better at it, but it’s taken me twenty years of practice and twenty-odd novels to date. So I’ve decided to write two novels a year instead of one, in addition to these memoirs.

Fun!

And to make this happen, I’ve changed the way I spend my day, prioritizing writing and saying no to things that interfere with my writing time.

In the beginning, I felt guilty when I said no, aware that I was disappointing people.

But then a miracle happened.

I got used to it.

And it got easier.

I stopped giving away my time. Instead I’m giving myself permission to keep it and use it the way I want.

So I don’t meet people I don’t want to see for lunch.

I don’t talk on the phone with anyone when I don’t want to.

I don’t impose obligations on myself, or allow others to impose them on me.

It’s taken me almost six decades on earth to figure this out, but here I am.

And in my free time when I’m not writing, I do only the things I want to do, like see friends, read, walk the dogs, and ride bikes or Buddy The Pony.

I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

I’ve come into myself.

Every woman does.

We find out who we really are.

We grow.

And in that way, we never grow old.