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.
Oh Katherine, I feel this. First, your non died hair means: YOU ARE A QUEEN THAT IS ALL.
It takes a bit to adjust the paradigm to the reality, but trust me, it becomes a freak flag that deserves to be flown.
Your mama and your father in law: That's a lot of energy flowing out for you and your husband. There are days in that process, many of them, where all you can do is hang on. It's pure love work, what you're doing. I wish you as much ease as possible as you move through all of that, with all its different facets, which are many.
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.
Oh Rita, there's so much here, so much. We will, and must talk about, the productivity lie and how it keeps us tired and unable to focus on what we really want to focus on. Because part of aging has to be about focusing on creating what GIVES us energy and doesn't ROB it.
I do love the word cultivating. It's so rich and I can picture hands in the dark earth.
Shedding the shoulds. Oh my. Yes.
It needs to be us doing the defining, no? We have that right, and honestly, that obligation to ourselves for all we've lived through.
Please never feel bad about including goat photos. I think I probably speak for many people when I say that seeing a random goat with no context whatsoever would be welcome. Thank you for your words on this - I know I'm probably much younger than most of the audience here, but this idea of aging is something I'm also consumed with, and it gets back to how much society has ingrained in to us that we need to reverse/undo/be consumed by it.
You might be younger but your voice is so important - I'll tell you why. When we (older) women lift ourselves up, we lift you up with us. If we can help you see a path that makes sense as you walk through life, one that reflects your highest desires and deepest beliefs, your life will be that much richer for YOURSELF. I welcome your voice and an honored by it.
quite a few years further along in this quest.. 78 tomorrow.. sometimes, when I inadvertently catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, unkempt and without having paid any attention to how I look, let’s say early morning, I can’t reconcile the “old woman” I see to my own feelings.. there were some moments when I thought I saw my mother instead 🤣
some years ago, when I stopped dying my hair, it took me months to recognize myself again.. growing old is rewarding in so many ways, but painful in many others..
I recently saw a video of myself from when I was around 25, newly divorced, at a time I really hated the way I looked. I thought to myself, damn, I was SMASHING it. How in the world could I have hated that lovely girl who was trying so hard? All that to say, we're hard on ourselves at any age, I suppose.
You're a beautiful 26 August Virgo woman. I see you in my mind's eye as I type this.
We are our mothers, at moments. And we're so very different at others. Sometimes we need to see our ancestors in our own faces to remember the journey.
I stopped dying my hair on my 50th birthday and never looked back. I just said, it's going to be whatever it's going to be, but what it's not going to be is dying roots then highlighting everything back to some light colour and then doing the whole damn thing 8 weeks later. 😂
Oh Diana, amen and yes/ sì to everything you say here! I am with you al cento per cento! I have turned 48 a couple of months ago and just as I’m learning about menopause and how everything is supposed to go to shit now, I giggle because I feel lighter and stronger than I was in my thirties. Yes, I do take care of myself with exercise, yoga, and meditation, but mostly, by trying to live a meaningful, purposeful life. My goal is not to look like I did in my twenties, but to have as many people as possible on my funeral. Or more importantly, continue to live in the hearts of the people I have touched. I look at my 71 year old mum who is more beautiful than she was 20-30 years ago. Why? Because she has finally dropped all the shit that was holding her back. Yes, she proudly supports grey hair and has wrinkles, but to me, she’s beautiful!! I lost my 92 year old grandma last week which I’m still having a hard time to accept. She was someone incredibly special to me. She was described as the “Hungarian Sophia Loren” in her youth, but to me she became seen only in her mid sixties when she was freed from the shackles of her marriage. Hers was a difficult life. I want to have a better life. I continue to be inspired by beautiful women like you, who bring me along to their creative journey and help me see the stunningly beautiful world through their eyes. Like this post, that went straight to my heart. Not just your pictures, your pottery, but your writing and wisdom! You are at your prime!!! I am looking up to you and smiling. You look “aging” look glamorous!! Thank you!! Un bacio
Carissima Imola, first of all my deepest condolences on the passing of your grandmother and I am very happy you had her in your life for as long as you did. And it sounds like she was a stunner🧡. I'm so grateful and happy your with me on this path. I know deep in my soul it's the best way for us to realize our passions and also respect our own wisdom.
I think about these things a lot. How can I not as a woman over 50? I appreciate that you wrote a manifesto and are speaking up for the absurd expectations and products hoisted upon women to look young forever. Definitely living in Europe makes it easier, possibly 100 times easier. I notice an intense ease and patience with my own appearance compared to, in particular, the 10 years I lived in NYC. I’m certainly with you and admire you and what you wrote
You know, when I get to New York ( in the form of stepping out of the airport shuttle and breathing in that SMELL) I look around and see all the women and their birkins and their phones and their camel coats and pulled back hair and the speed with which they maneuver through and past me and I think : that was me and she's still inside me somewhere.
BUT
She's learned. She stopped. She got lost. And found. And lost again.
And I love those women. And the woman I was then. And how I took it all so seriously because I really did believe my life ( my house my car my credit card debt) depended upon being her.
We work so hard to be all we can be.
And sometimes life throws us a different path and we grab onto it and there is wild change.
All that to say I'm with you on this incredible journey.
Your manifesto makes me feel like someone walked in the room and resolved an unfinished chord hanging in the air. It settled me and feels true to me like I might have written the same. I am in, and have been— we are already doing it. Maybe living with deaths of various types in my life made that funeral a yard stick for living . Or maybe it is just being southern and part of a culture with a cookbook for funeral casseroles called “ Being Dead is No Excuse,” but I imagine mine. It bums me out I will be the only one unable to enjoy seeing all the cool people I know so maybe I need to get on with it while I can. And as for beauty? It’s an inside job. Eyes may see but it takes your brain to translate an image. Sounds like you are learning another new language, friend— thanks for helping us learn it too.
Yes- and your desire for the small life, the inward- I feel it too!! So amazing to have found you all here in the ether! The disembodied nature of online stuff feels rather other worldly- maybe it’s own kind of afterlife that is actually LIFE. Or maybe it’s bed to write sci fi?!😂 and yeah- doomed to write nonfiction because I can create nothing more fictional than the actual south.
I'm newly 65. Dyed my hair briefly in my late 20s. More people commented on my luscious white hair before Covid when I was a maverick. Now that I'm no longer a unicorn I still get a few compliments like the woman crossing at the red light in front of my car who mouthed "I love your hair" through my windshield!
It's the journey that's the point-the destination is irrelevant of course-and I very very much want to join you on yours.
I am one of those women mouthing "I love your hair" to other women with white manes! In fact, in Germany, it can be sort of shocking to the recipient of this kind of compliment. I was at the gym a few months back and there was a tiny sweet woman with a massive silver braid all the way down her back. I couldn't help myself - I told her her hair was beautiful. She was SO taken back. So I backed off right away, and then she came to me a few minutes later and said, "thank you, no one ever compliments me. I love yours too!" and we started a conversation.
The goat ❤️ your beautiful manifesto almost made my cry. Yes, that is how I would love to live life. But I am struggling with feeling ok with my next birthday being 60. I have to be honest. My gray hair do not show ( they're there alright) but turning totally gray, that's a challenge. Your post give me hope and motivation. But, I'm not there yet.
Where you are is exactly right! All of these things take time to process and accept, and there is no wrong or right.
I can only tell you this, Carina. My sixties have so far been my best decade - by far. It's like all of the struggle so far has been worth it just to get to this headspace. It might end up being the same for you.
We can't stop the clock, and honestly, we just keep getting to be more ourselves every single day.
Wear your hair the way it works best for where you are right now in life. As that changes, your hair can change too, if you want it to be so.
We can grow into ourselves for as long as we are here - one single silver strand at a time.
To some degree - these European countries do tend to absorb American marketing though. It comes over here in waves, thanks to social media. Germany is particularly smitten with the (shudder) US-American anti aging vibe. I can imagine it's different in the Americas outside of the USA.
Probably very true. Also Mexico (and most Central American countries I’ve seen) do not have the expendable income of Germany and other EU nations, so marketing would most likely fall short of the intended mark. Au natural ):
Oh you bet we can Jenni. And we can do it with men / partners who also want to be the best of who they are, or we can do it alone. That much has become crystal clear to me. 🧡
I did! This little guy was born last spring along with a few others. I hugged him and his siblings since they were born. A real plus of living in the Black Forest... You get to know goats 😂
I am with you…side by side… applauding this exquisite post about what is real. As a former ad exec and writer in the beauty category (among others) I finally looked at myself in the mirror, and had the courage to step away from contributing to the culture of your best self being realized from the outside, not the inside. That’s where the beauty lies. Aging is saging could not feel truer for me, an almost 67 year old woman.
Yesterday, someone said “retirement” looks good on you. Well fuck that. I can’t stand the word, or the thought. I have so much more in me.. so much to give myself, and share with others. Yes, I’m with you, dear friend. Let’s GO!
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.
Oh Katherine, I feel this. First, your non died hair means: YOU ARE A QUEEN THAT IS ALL.
It takes a bit to adjust the paradigm to the reality, but trust me, it becomes a freak flag that deserves to be flown.
Your mama and your father in law: That's a lot of energy flowing out for you and your husband. There are days in that process, many of them, where all you can do is hang on. It's pure love work, what you're doing. I wish you as much ease as possible as you move through all of that, with all its different facets, which are many.
Thank you for being here. So much.
You rock grey hair, as so many other women I see! It helps me embrace my own!
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.
Oh Rita, there's so much here, so much. We will, and must talk about, the productivity lie and how it keeps us tired and unable to focus on what we really want to focus on. Because part of aging has to be about focusing on creating what GIVES us energy and doesn't ROB it.
I do love the word cultivating. It's so rich and I can picture hands in the dark earth.
Shedding the shoulds. Oh my. Yes.
It needs to be us doing the defining, no? We have that right, and honestly, that obligation to ourselves for all we've lived through.
Warmest love.
“ live our way to the answers”!!!!! Yes! I love this/ all of it. And maybe write our way to understanding the living as we go?
Writing is always my only path to true understanding. I guess I just assume that part of living is writing.
I love that assumption
Yes!! This is my experience too.
I could write exactly the same as this!
I salute you Rita, and always enjoy reading you!!
Oh, thank you, Imola! The feeling is very mutual.
Please never feel bad about including goat photos. I think I probably speak for many people when I say that seeing a random goat with no context whatsoever would be welcome. Thank you for your words on this - I know I'm probably much younger than most of the audience here, but this idea of aging is something I'm also consumed with, and it gets back to how much society has ingrained in to us that we need to reverse/undo/be consumed by it.
You might be younger but your voice is so important - I'll tell you why. When we (older) women lift ourselves up, we lift you up with us. If we can help you see a path that makes sense as you walk through life, one that reflects your highest desires and deepest beliefs, your life will be that much richer for YOURSELF. I welcome your voice and an honored by it.
And f yes. Goats. 😂
count me in as well.. I am
quite a few years further along in this quest.. 78 tomorrow.. sometimes, when I inadvertently catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, unkempt and without having paid any attention to how I look, let’s say early morning, I can’t reconcile the “old woman” I see to my own feelings.. there were some moments when I thought I saw my mother instead 🤣
some years ago, when I stopped dying my hair, it took me months to recognize myself again.. growing old is rewarding in so many ways, but painful in many others..
greetings to all of
you from Vienna, Austria
Servus, Anna 🧡
I recently saw a video of myself from when I was around 25, newly divorced, at a time I really hated the way I looked. I thought to myself, damn, I was SMASHING it. How in the world could I have hated that lovely girl who was trying so hard? All that to say, we're hard on ourselves at any age, I suppose.
You're a beautiful 26 August Virgo woman. I see you in my mind's eye as I type this.
We are our mothers, at moments. And we're so very different at others. Sometimes we need to see our ancestors in our own faces to remember the journey.
I stopped dying my hair on my 50th birthday and never looked back. I just said, it's going to be whatever it's going to be, but what it's not going to be is dying roots then highlighting everything back to some light colour and then doing the whole damn thing 8 weeks later. 😂
Ganz liebe Grüße nach Wien 🧡
Oh Diana, amen and yes/ sì to everything you say here! I am with you al cento per cento! I have turned 48 a couple of months ago and just as I’m learning about menopause and how everything is supposed to go to shit now, I giggle because I feel lighter and stronger than I was in my thirties. Yes, I do take care of myself with exercise, yoga, and meditation, but mostly, by trying to live a meaningful, purposeful life. My goal is not to look like I did in my twenties, but to have as many people as possible on my funeral. Or more importantly, continue to live in the hearts of the people I have touched. I look at my 71 year old mum who is more beautiful than she was 20-30 years ago. Why? Because she has finally dropped all the shit that was holding her back. Yes, she proudly supports grey hair and has wrinkles, but to me, she’s beautiful!! I lost my 92 year old grandma last week which I’m still having a hard time to accept. She was someone incredibly special to me. She was described as the “Hungarian Sophia Loren” in her youth, but to me she became seen only in her mid sixties when she was freed from the shackles of her marriage. Hers was a difficult life. I want to have a better life. I continue to be inspired by beautiful women like you, who bring me along to their creative journey and help me see the stunningly beautiful world through their eyes. Like this post, that went straight to my heart. Not just your pictures, your pottery, but your writing and wisdom! You are at your prime!!! I am looking up to you and smiling. You look “aging” look glamorous!! Thank you!! Un bacio
Carissima Imola, first of all my deepest condolences on the passing of your grandmother and I am very happy you had her in your life for as long as you did. And it sounds like she was a stunner🧡. I'm so grateful and happy your with me on this path. I know deep in my soul it's the best way for us to realize our passions and also respect our own wisdom.
Un abbraccio grande a te. 🧡🧡🧡
Here's to dropping the shit that holds us back!
I'm in!
I think about these things a lot. How can I not as a woman over 50? I appreciate that you wrote a manifesto and are speaking up for the absurd expectations and products hoisted upon women to look young forever. Definitely living in Europe makes it easier, possibly 100 times easier. I notice an intense ease and patience with my own appearance compared to, in particular, the 10 years I lived in NYC. I’m certainly with you and admire you and what you wrote
I know.
You know, when I get to New York ( in the form of stepping out of the airport shuttle and breathing in that SMELL) I look around and see all the women and their birkins and their phones and their camel coats and pulled back hair and the speed with which they maneuver through and past me and I think : that was me and she's still inside me somewhere.
BUT
She's learned. She stopped. She got lost. And found. And lost again.
And I love those women. And the woman I was then. And how I took it all so seriously because I really did believe my life ( my house my car my credit card debt) depended upon being her.
We work so hard to be all we can be.
And sometimes life throws us a different path and we grab onto it and there is wild change.
All that to say I'm with you on this incredible journey.
Your manifesto makes me feel like someone walked in the room and resolved an unfinished chord hanging in the air. It settled me and feels true to me like I might have written the same. I am in, and have been— we are already doing it. Maybe living with deaths of various types in my life made that funeral a yard stick for living . Or maybe it is just being southern and part of a culture with a cookbook for funeral casseroles called “ Being Dead is No Excuse,” but I imagine mine. It bums me out I will be the only one unable to enjoy seeing all the cool people I know so maybe I need to get on with it while I can. And as for beauty? It’s an inside job. Eyes may see but it takes your brain to translate an image. Sounds like you are learning another new language, friend— thanks for helping us learn it too.
Beauty is an inside job.
Now see? The community writes the damn syllabus.
This comment deserves a close reading. You and words, Emily. It's like you speak to the interior part of me brain.
We're going to learn this new language together.
🧡
You speak to the interior of my brain, too. Uncanny.
💜💜
You have so much inner beauty Emily, I love it every time I encounter it in your beautiful words! Honoured to learn from you.
Oh thank you, Imola- and I from you!
"It settled me and feels true to me like I might have written the same." Me too, Emily. And OMG that cookbook title. You can't make that up 🙂
Yes- and your desire for the small life, the inward- I feel it too!! So amazing to have found you all here in the ether! The disembodied nature of online stuff feels rather other worldly- maybe it’s own kind of afterlife that is actually LIFE. Or maybe it’s bed to write sci fi?!😂 and yeah- doomed to write nonfiction because I can create nothing more fictional than the actual south.
Maybe a small life is the biggest thing we can ever do for ourselves?
I love this.
Wow wow wow— yes yes.
This thread is making me think about writing about the time I came within a hair of getting thrown in county jail in Gaffney, SC...
Oh my god- this is not an option- you must now
What Emily said!!!
Good god but I would love to have a long conversation with you about the south! I always leave there a little shook. 🙂
Me toooo- I left 27 years ago and am still shook! 🤣
Darn it- auto correct on my phone and no edit button- * maybe I am meant to write sci fi. *
I'm newly 65. Dyed my hair briefly in my late 20s. More people commented on my luscious white hair before Covid when I was a maverick. Now that I'm no longer a unicorn I still get a few compliments like the woman crossing at the red light in front of my car who mouthed "I love your hair" through my windshield!
It's the journey that's the point-the destination is irrelevant of course-and I very very much want to join you on yours.
Sarah 🧡
I am one of those women mouthing "I love your hair" to other women with white manes! In fact, in Germany, it can be sort of shocking to the recipient of this kind of compliment. I was at the gym a few months back and there was a tiny sweet woman with a massive silver braid all the way down her back. I couldn't help myself - I told her her hair was beautiful. She was SO taken back. So I backed off right away, and then she came to me a few minutes later and said, "thank you, no one ever compliments me. I love yours too!" and we started a conversation.
I am so happy you are here. Welcome. Big hugs.
The goat ❤️ your beautiful manifesto almost made my cry. Yes, that is how I would love to live life. But I am struggling with feeling ok with my next birthday being 60. I have to be honest. My gray hair do not show ( they're there alright) but turning totally gray, that's a challenge. Your post give me hope and motivation. But, I'm not there yet.
Where you are is exactly right! All of these things take time to process and accept, and there is no wrong or right.
I can only tell you this, Carina. My sixties have so far been my best decade - by far. It's like all of the struggle so far has been worth it just to get to this headspace. It might end up being the same for you.
We can't stop the clock, and honestly, we just keep getting to be more ourselves every single day.
Wear your hair the way it works best for where you are right now in life. As that changes, your hair can change too, if you want it to be so.
We can grow into ourselves for as long as we are here - one single silver strand at a time.
I'm so happy you are here with us 🧡
What a beautiful post Diana. And all so very true.i think there’s less pressure in foreign (from US) countries.
And thank you 🧡😚
To some degree - these European countries do tend to absorb American marketing though. It comes over here in waves, thanks to social media. Germany is particularly smitten with the (shudder) US-American anti aging vibe. I can imagine it's different in the Americas outside of the USA.
Probably very true. Also Mexico (and most Central American countries I’ve seen) do not have the expendable income of Germany and other EU nations, so marketing would most likely fall short of the intended mark. Au natural ):
“There’s nothing more boring and utterly useless than trying to be/look/act younger than we are.”
YES!!! It is boring!!!!! Especially when I see men trying to be younger than they are. Like come on, can we evolve? Grow? Change?
Oh you bet we can Jenni. And we can do it with men / partners who also want to be the best of who they are, or we can do it alone. That much has become crystal clear to me. 🧡
Love the goat photo! Did you take it?
I did! This little guy was born last spring along with a few others. I hugged him and his siblings since they were born. A real plus of living in the Black Forest... You get to know goats 😂
Awww that’s so cool. I’d love to get hugs from goats 🤗
It's a conditional love. Hugging sometimes involves a shove or two 😂
I’ve been here all along. With you on this journey.
I feel you holding my hand. My head on your shoulder.
I am with you…side by side… applauding this exquisite post about what is real. As a former ad exec and writer in the beauty category (among others) I finally looked at myself in the mirror, and had the courage to step away from contributing to the culture of your best self being realized from the outside, not the inside. That’s where the beauty lies. Aging is saging could not feel truer for me, an almost 67 year old woman.
Yesterday, someone said “retirement” looks good on you. Well fuck that. I can’t stand the word, or the thought. I have so much more in me.. so much to give myself, and share with others. Yes, I’m with you, dear friend. Let’s GO!
Oh fuck that INDEED. If the world needs someone, it's you,Barbara.
I absolutely love all the positive aging content I see on Substack. It’s so deeply refreshing and gives me so much hope
Eden, isn't it? Substack is truly a gathering place for like minded people. I love it too.
Thank you, Diana. I feel inspired by everything you wrote.