At 65, I feel every bit of getting older. And I don’t flinch.
I embrace my changes while still working to preserve my strength and flexibility, my mind and my body.
But I remember a girl who did.
She had curly blonde hair in an era when the look was Charlie’s Angels straight. She tried everything to fix it. Huge rollers she slept on all night. An iron, the kind meant for clothes, run carefully over her own hair. None of it worked for long. The curl always came back by afternoon, and so did the teasing. She wasn’t even worried about her body back then. She was slim, the “right” shape for the moment. But she didn’t have the look, and that was its own kind of “not enough.”
She had yet to learn what I call the “Ten-Five-Three-Year Rule” of life.
A few years later, after three babies in three years, I worked hard to get my body back. And one summer I bought a bikini, lime green with a big floral print, the kind of suit you buy when you’ve decided to feel good in your skin again. I wore it on vacation. Felt like myself in it.
Then we went to the family cabin. I didn’t wear it there. Stretch marks. Skin that had stretched out way beyond where it started. The same body, the same suit, but somewhere I knew people, where it felt like it counted more? Nope. I covered up instead.
Here’s the rule.
Look at your body right now and all the “faults” you think you see.
In ten years, most of us look back and say, why didn’t I appreciate that body and celebrate all its glory? Why didn’t I wear the skimpy swimsuit, the daring dress? I didn’t realize how good I looked.
In my early-to-mid 50s, the rule shifted. Ten years became five, because the body was changing faster than it used to. Now, in my mid-60s, it’s down to three.
Not long ago, I told my 95-year-old mother-in-law about this rule. She laughed, HARD, and said it’s down to every ONE year now that she’s in her mid-90s.
Point being, enjoy this body, just as it is, right now.
Because we either keep changing or we stop existing on this material plane, and there’s no version of getting older that skips the changing part.
Honestly, my life keeps getting better and better. Not despite the changes. Because I’ve learned to keep growing instead of bracing against what’s next.
It’s every ONE year now.
Absolutely love this!!! I look back when I was 20 and was so carefree and confident on the outside but mentally going through it. In my 30s I started to take better care of myself and my body was no longer made by cigarettes & rum.
My best feeling age was year 40. Before COVID shots, having COVID and my car accident. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel good, but now the body is changing. Every day I am focusing on what my body can do after all the things. When Mike and I went to Greece and Italy. I wore the hot momma 🔥 dress, the bikini 👙 and I'm still doing it. Heading into year 45 (September) in my crop top, bikini, loving me for me. (Wrinkles under the eyes and dark circles)