How Old Is a Woman Before

She Counts as Old?

What changes, for better and worse, as we get older?
Why is it gender-specific?
How old is old? Be careful before answering: I have a horse in this
race. Turning 63 not long ago, I still consider myself too energetic,
too lively, and too frisky to be regarded as a mare.

I prefer to regard myself as a filly.

But I might be closer to being a filet.

I’m just trying to be honest with myself and pass the message along
to others my age: What changes, for better and for worse, as we get
older?

I was prompted to write about age because I read in a back issue

of People magazine that Jane Fonda published a book about turning
80 a while back when she was spellbindingly gorgeous (and also
active and involved, but mostly gorgeous). She looks fabulous at 80.

Picture me reading excerpts while sitting under a hair dryer at my

wonderful hair salon. First of all, I’m wearing the navy blue plastic
cape I’m given to protect my clothes. The cape makes me look not
like a superhero but like a dark and roomy mountain hut where weary
climbers might rest. Tufts of my hair stick directly out from my head
horizontally, as if I’m attempting to secure better WiFi. A white collar
of paper beneath my chin makes me look like Ms. Pillsbury Dough
Girl. Or, since I haven’t put on any make-up today, Mrs. Pillsbury
Dough Boy, Sr.

Yet at 80, Ms. Fonda looks like a million bucks.

But it occurs to me in a flash—maybe because of the enhanced WiFi

or a spark in the dryer—that nothing has actually changed.
Even when I was 20, Jane Fonda at 40 looked better than I did.
When I was 40, Jane Fonda at 60 looked better. Why would it have
changed now?  

I haven’t spent my life trying to look spectacular. That was never my

job. I didn’t even think of applying for that job, because it was obvious
that it would not be a career for which I was suited, any more than
being an athlete or chef or artist. So why would I compare myself to a
person whose lifetime has been spent professionally shaping her
physical self?

That would be like deliberately torturing myself for being unable to

live up to an unrealistic standard that only a few human beings out of
thousands could possibly achieve.

Oh. Right. I’ve spent about 57 years doing precisely that. I started
when I was 3 and saw that neighbor Nancy had two dimples to my
one.

I’m done with invidious comparisons; there’s no time in my schedule

anymore. I take almost everything—other people’s better looks,
better waistlines, better fortunes, better scores, better reviews, better
incomes, and more well-groomed pets—less personally. Good for
them. Jane Fonda’s firm eyelids have nothing to do with me because
nobody is making a comparison between us except for me—and
that’s not going to happen again.

Other folks’ achievements don’t diminish my own—and realizing that

is my birthday gift.

As I get older, I take angry insults less personally, but I take

thoughtful criticism more personally. I take politicians less personally,
but I take the political system more personally. 

I take money less seriously, but finance more seriously; I take

technology more seriously, but gadgets less seriously.

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Showing up on time has become more important, but leaving early
less so. Civility is far grander and more significant than ceremony.
Sorrow and joy both command the stage, while self-indulgence and
moodiness get the hook.
Increasingly, I enjoy the frivolous while becoming increasingly less
tolerant of the trivial. My affection for solitude has increased, while
any sense of loneliness I have has all but disappeared. Generosity has
become much easier, and any scrimpy desire to withhold has
diminished proportionally.

I pay more attention to requests and happily shrug off demands. I

undertake more responsibility, but more easily shake off the guilt.

At 63, I hope to cast less shadow and to make more light. I hope to
savor routines without getting stuck in ruts. I might not win, place, or
show at the races, but I hope to feel a sense of accomplishment and
delight when I cross the finish line.