The View From Here – The Trouble With Aging

I know we all get older. We are all aging.  And I knew that the day would come when I would deal with the grey hair and the wrinkles but for some reason I’m struggling with this.  Maybe it’s because I’ve outlived my mom and I didn’t see her get older.  I didn’t see the wrinkles and grey hair.  I didn’t get to laugh with her over the aging process, the hormones, the menopause.  All the “stuff”.  Maybe it’s because I look in the mirror and don’t see the resemblance to my mom anymore and I don’t know this body and face looking back at me.

I still FEEL young.  My brain and my heart are struggling to connect. But maybe we all have a bit of trouble with our changing bodies because the world is always trying to show us it’s not OKAY to get older.  Or LOOK older.  Maybe it’s because we are surrounded by images of younger women.  Thin.  Flawless.  Perfect.  And the older we get the more disconnected we feel from them and even our younger selves.

So when I have those days that I struggle, and find it hard to recognize the image in the mirror, I get really excited when I see someone in the public eye come out about the same struggles.

Jamie Lee Curtis has been making headlines recently for speaking out about aging.  In this article  – she explains why we need to change the way we talk about aging.  More “pro-aging”.  I love that so much.  I don’t want to feel bad about getting older.  As the saying goes “it’s something denied to many”.  My mom included.

I especially love the fact that at 63,  Jamie Lee Curtis says she has learned to accept her body.  AS IS.  And she has even gone so far as to tell people that in her latest movie there would be no concealing of anything.

She is featured in the upcoming film “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and shared a photo recently of herself in costume and in the caption wrote:

“In the world, there is an industry — a billion-dollar, trillion-dollar industry — about hiding things. Concealers. Body-shapers. Fillers. Procedures. Clothing. Hair accessories. Hair products. Everything to conceal the reality of who we are. And my instruction to everybody was: I want there to be no concealing of anything. I’ve been sucking my stomach in since I was 11, when you start being conscious of boys and bodies, and the jeans are super tight. I very specifically decided to relinquish and release every muscle I had that I used to clench to hide the reality. That was my goal. I have never felt more free creatively and physically…”

Thank you Jamie Lee Curtis for normalizing aging. Thank you for helping us feel good in our bodies and helping us to love and accept ourselves for who we are, as we are without hiding who we are.  For making it okay to be who we are.  Without hiding our self perceived flaws.

You are a hero to me.

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This post was written by Carrie Buchanan