A lot of advertising revolves around the horrors of growing old. They remind you again and again, your face needs to defy age. There are serums and potions out there that can erase signs of ageing. Magazines tell you how to fight cellulite. How to get rid of the muffin top belly. How to work towards a swim suit ready body. Every third celebrity mother is a ‘yummy mummy.’ Every female actor in her 40s looks bleached, polished, tweaked and agelessly perfect and none of what is being fed us subliminally ever tells us just how liberating growing older is. The first thing you figure if you are paying attention to life is that no matter what your age is, your mind can still be as young as fresh as when you were sixteen. You can still look at life with wonder and delight. You can still dance for an hour if you allow your body to forget just how old it is. You can laugh, cry, live regardless of the numbers notched up against your name. Most of all there are a few priceless things that growing older teaches you
All those resisting a fact staring them in the face already know just how powerful it is.
Whatever it is that you are resisting..already is. You realise that, what is..is and there is no getting away from it. But you also learn along the way that you can always create your own reality and inhabit it without giving too much importance to what people believe your reality to be. You realise ageing is inevitable but you can still choose how you meet life everyday.
You never have to prove yourself to anyone.
It is a waste of time..trying to do things, you figure, only for effect. Only things you do to fulfil your innermost promptings, bring you centered joy. You realise, nothing matters more than the your own approval, the respect your earn by living upto your own highest vision for yourself. People who try the hardest to impress others are the least impressed with themselves.
Stupidity and arrogance mean the same thing.
True that. You also learn that if you stop engaging with them, they move on to the next target.
You now can tell who means well and who doesn’t.
Yes, you learn at a certain point of your life, instinctively and without doubt just who is watching out for you and who is waiting for you to skid and fall. You learn to trim the list of your ‘friends’ and invest trust in a few who have earned it. You learn to trust your gut, steer clear of those who are drawn to you for the wrong reasons and keep your inner circle sacrosanct. You make the fine distinction between friends for life and acquaintances.
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You learn to keep your peace.
You learn that keeping your peace means you have the courage to not always be heard loud and clear.
Being reactive is no longer as fun as it used to.You are not perfect but by god, the distance you have travelled
You want to feel good, not just look good.
You choose clothes that feel good over those that just look good. You start thinking about your inner life. Meditation begins to make sense. You want silence, not just without but within. You can stay off social media without needing to proclaim to the world just what your latest achievement is, where you ate last night, the new pair of shoes everyone exclaimed over. You want to save energy for real things.
You no longer fear saying,’No.’
That was always a tough one, right? You did what you were expected to and even more because you always wanted to come through for everyone. But as you grow older, the idea of mortality becomes more and more tangible. You realise you don’t have all the time in the world and there are things you always wanted to do for yourself and did not. And you learn to say ‘No’ to energy drainers. Be they people, events, obligations.
You no longer fear change.
Because your life has changed irrevocably from the time you were in your twenties and you have changed with it too, you no longer fear change. One more wrinkle or grey hair, a new challenge does not worry you as much as they once did. You fear boredom now. And staying stuck in one pattern for too long.You see your flaws more clearly and are less resistant to change because you know if you don’t change well within time, life will drag you kicking and screaming towards the person you are meant to be.
You realise everything boils down to perspective.
You become acutely aware that nothing is forever. And that it is okay.
That death is a fact of life but that nothing can take away the joy invested in the here and now.
Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be.
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