Ok, deep breath.
Today commenced with a long Black Forest walk with the simple intent of coming back to myself. Summer seems to be in a mad rush to end, throwing its most beautiful days at us.
We’ve stepped out of the vocal and expansive Leo energy and have slidden softly into Virgo - the time of healing and down-to-earth energy. Nature follows, offering up the final fresh green shoots before the fall chill starts its slow, graceful descent.
Everything was so beautiful and competing for my visual attention.
I had much to think about.
I’ve been mulling over deep concepts. Having turned sixty-six a few weeks back seems to have triggered a cascade of thoughts regarding not just this phase of life, but also the paradigms that accompany it, brought to us courtesy of the global marketing machine.
Those paradigms have us slowing down, retiring, taking up a hobby or two, and living out our days in some sort of pre-destined half-reality that in no way reflects the potential we possess or the beings we are.
Have I mentioned the global marketing machine really pisses me off?
Here on Substack there’s a thriving, deep-rooted, and extremely interesting community of people in the latter half of life making breakthrough decisions, manifesting lifelong desires, changing their channels of living.
One of the reasons I love Substack is because all of this reflects my own life’s track, and the platform gives me access to like-minded people.
We filter aging - literally remove it - on social media. We erase wrinkles and add lip lines and we think we’re fooling, who, somebody?
We fight aging. In every way possible. We look at aging as the enemy and we throw so much money and energy at getting rid of it. Which we can’t, and we know that, but we try.
Because the global marketing machine depends on it.
The cosmetics industry, the hair “care” industry, and the skin “care” industry are constantly coming up with new ways of getting older people to part with our money, make us think our beings, as they are, are unacceptable. These industries market and re-market ingredients that don’t work, dyes that are chemical cocktails, and charge us extortion prices just to try and stave away what is our birthright: to age confidently and with intention.
We live in a world where “aging out” is an acceptable term.
Social media videos about getting your hair cut and coloured that can set you back a thousand bucks are literally everywhere. It strikes me that in big cities, no one really blinks at these kinds of prices anymore.
These are a few of millions of examples of how we’re constantly played with, lied to, robbed.
I want to cry, “Whose idea was this? When did we become such slaves to nothingness and agism?”
Then I remember I have a BS in Marketing ← oh, how perfect that is. I learned in college all about how to do everything I’ve come to hate. I paid off student loans for that privilege.
Look, I’m not against cosmetics. I’m a makeup girlie. And for God’s sake I believe in taking good care of myself and practice it daily.
But blowing the bank on trying to look younger? If you could hear the inside of my head right now, you’d be deafened by the screaming NOOOOOs in there.
Because there are two separate and distinct things.
There’s trying to look younger.
And then there’s trying to be the best version of you at this point in your life.
If you ask me, the second option is worth everything. The first is nothing.
There’s nothing more boring and utterly useless than trying to be/look/act younger than we are. Because it focuses our energy in returning to a time that will never come back. It’s enormously self defeating, and it denies all the beauty, wisdom and coolness we’ve managed to accumulate through the act of actually getting through life.
There’s so much we’ve learned through aging. Lists and books and stories jammed full of wisdom and depth and beauty.
Late-stage capitalism would have us believe that that all of those lists and books are worthless, because the answer is in buying our way out of aging with the latest and the newest until we can’t buy anymore because
NEWS FLASH: we’re all going to die.
And honestly, the question isn’t: how do I stay young until I die?
How about this one instead: Who do I want to be on the day I die?
Who is that person? Did she live her life in alignment with her deepest and most important values? Did she take chances and leaps of faith without a life boat? Did she make the most of the talents and gifts she was given? Did she leave the world any better than she found it, or did she try?
My mother had exactly 6 people at her funeral because she died the week covid exploded. I watched on Zoom and learned a truth that day.
Small confession: I often had sad thoughts about what kind of funeral I would be given, because I am so far away from so many people I love.
But I’ve reframed that, learning through what happened to my mother, and the fact that I live a very different life than most people do.
I now really care about, and wish to focus on, the person I leave this planet as. And I want her to have lived aligned with her deepest and most important values.
That led to me reframing everything about aging.
Everything.
I don’t want to be younger.
I just want to be me, that is to say, I want to bring out the best me, to understand what’s possible for me, how I can make things happen, how I can be a good friend and partner, help younger women, manifest beauty, create good design, leave behind well restored homes, make funky art and cool ceramics, cultivate gardens, cook good food, all in the most wonderful ways within my limitations and capabilities. And I want to do all or some of that until I cannot, and when that day comes, I want to gracefully exit as best I can, knowing that this iteration of me was lived to its absolute fullest.
That’s my manifesto.
And I don’t think I’m alone in wanting some beautiful version of this exact thing. Which is why this way of aging, of seeing it as an HONOUR because that’s what it is, will be what I focus on moving forward.
One I’ve learned from Substack in the last nine months: that you can write about what you feel like writing about
or
you can write about what you NEED to write about and bring others along.
And this is, my friends, you beautiful people, what I need to write about. It’s also what I would love desperately to hear your opinions on.
How are you going to make this beautiful phase of life be a reflection of your highest goals and deepest internal alignment?
Who do you want to be the day you leave this gorgeous, complicated, searingly painful and indescribably precious planet?
and one more:
Would you be interested in embarking on the emotional journey of discovery? Because I really don’t want to walk this path alone, and I can’t manifest what I don’t name.
I’m looking at you just like this goat from my morning walk is looking at you.
I’ll be outlining how this could look specifically over the coming weeks and months, with the goal of bringing you joy and creating a community of shining stars ready to sparkle their brightness on to others.
But for today I’m reaching my hand out to you, through this crazy, strange, fascinating platform, and asking you to join me on the way to aligning with our most beautiful and wise selves.
Please let me know what you think in the comments and I will respond in kind.
Thank you so much.
Let’s share our wisdom and goodness.
Love,
Diana
I love and appreciate this post and your manifesto, for many reasons it was just what I needed to read today! I recently retired, moved back to the area where I grew up, stopped coloring my hair—honestly still having a bit of shock when I pass by a mirror—and am currently the primary caregiver for my elderly mom with MS, while my husband is caring for his 95 year old father. I’m daily trying to bring in as much compassion and joy to life (mine and my loved ones) as I can. Thank you again for your thoughtful words, and please count me in as interested in joining in on the journey.
I'm right with you, Diana. I left my career 3 years ago, and I turn 60 on my next birthday, and I've been pondering these questions, a lot. I think we have to live our way to the answers, trying things and seeing how they feel. I think it's a process, and that it takes some time, to shed all the shoulds that the world throws at us. I find myself resisting the idea that I have to be some best, most magnificent version of myself in this last stage, that I have to have some kind of productive (in conventional ways) second act. I find myself wanting to simply be, rather than wanting to do or achieve. Like you, I want to cultivate deep relationships, beautiful things, good food, gardens. I want to write what I need to, which has me turning more inward than outward (at least for now) with my words. I want a small life. Less definitely feels like more to me. I feel as if I have to resist the many messages I get about not going quietly into that good night. I hope at the end, I do go quietly--because I got enough of the light, and I'm not raging about anything any more, and there is deep peace in a good night.