Hello, everyone! Welcome to this week’s post and a huge welcome to all of you who have subscribed over the past week or so. Lots of you! Thank you for choosing to read or listen to my writing, I really appreciate your time and interest.
Earlier this week I put out a Note briefly mentioning an interesting moment in the life of my shiny, red boots. For those of you who didn’t see it, I was in our little seaside town wearing my shiny, red boots (which I love), when I walked past two women who I’d noticed staring at my feet as I approached them. They were getting on in years, but probably around my own age (68), and as I passed I saw a disapproving look and caught a snippet of their conversation:
“….boots….at her age….”
I grinned my cheekiest grin at them, and smiled all the way to the cake shop. They had made my day, and their sneery comment had, perversely, cheered me no end.
‘At my age’ - what does that even mean? I don’t know, because I don’t really think about it anymore. I used to. I don’t know when I stopped thinking about it, but I just did. An un-noticed transition, and a positive one. When I buy clothes, when I get dressed in the morning, it’s not for anyone else except me. I love my boots and skinny jeans. I wear my Docs with a summer dress. I rock an oversized full-length puffa jacket. I often wear clothes that I’ve had for more than ten years (or even twenty), and I love my hand knits. My grey hair is long and often loose. I dance around the house to Fleetwood Mac or Motown. I sweetly remember my youth with Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, CSNY, Free, and early Elton John. But lordy, lordy, I wouldn’t go back there. The angst, the lack of confidence, the over-eagerness to please - no thank you.
I didn’t find my comfortable self until I was well into middle-age, in my fifties I think that stealthy transition started in earnest. I stopped wearing a face-full of make-up and a smart suit or dress for work. I eased out of the high Manolos and into the flat ankle boot. Years of being a butterfly pinned to an exhibition card faded as I learned to love myself for myself, and not for how others perceived or valued me. It took a long time and a fair bit of therapy to stop reflecting myself in the mirror of others’ views. Chasing that reflection of approval was harmful and pointless, and the way I presented myself to the world was only a small part of it, but when I finally reached the ‘Fuck it’ stage, life became much sweeter and less like hard work.
So, as they say, age is just a number. And the number is whatever you feel it might be. For me, it’s an indeterminate number that changes almost every day. When I’m rock-pooling with my husband, shrieking over tiny crabs and the water getting into my shoes, I’m about 8. When we’re sitting quietly, watching the sun on the sea and the clouds on the horizon, I’m appreciating every one of my 68 years and the 47 of them that I have been married to him. When I’m seriously birdwatching on the saltings of the Otter estuary, I’m an organised middle-aged adult with binoculars and a packed lunch and a flask of tea. When I’m doing some gardening and my back aches after 20 minutes I’m back to 68 again. When arthritis plays up and my thumbs, knees, hips and other joints are, literally, a pain, I sometimes feel 100. When I’m buying clothes or shoes, I have no age, lest it corals me into something ‘age-appropriate’. No fear.
I’m not afraid of getting older; after all, it beats being dead, and I can’t make it go away, it’s inevitable and expected. But I don’t have to dread it, or make it come more quickly than it needs to, or make myself miserable worrying about it. I love living and I want as much of it as I can get at the best quality I can manage. And red, shiny boots are as much a part of that as eating well and moderate exercise - and more fun!
I’ll write soon. x
By the way, here are a couple of Substacks that consider age in a way that appeals to me:
I’m childless (by choice) and ageing without children is an interesting experience. Jody Day explores it in a way that I find helpful.
The Oldster, of course, is a must. It doesn’t concentrate on older age, but all stages of ageing. And it provides some brilliantly interesting interviews with older adults.
See you next week. J x
“And red, shiny boots are as much a part of that as eating well and moderate exercise - and more fun!”
Hear, hear! You go, girl!
I love the questioning of what it even means, 'at her age!' What is age, really. Yes, it's a number, but the experience of that 'number' varies so much from person to person, and day to day. I felt sad for those women that age-shamed you for your choice of footwear... how vicious must their own internal ageists be to live with! Like you, I am all ages, and it seems that we all are. Sometimes I feel ten thousand years old, sometimes ten! Thank you for sharing my work with your readers too, I really appreciate that. Hugs, Jody x