Do you remember when you were little or even a teenager, you thought fifty was old? But I also remember a lot of fifty and almost fifty year olds looking much older then versus now. Or maybe it is a case of everything is relative.
For me being fifty is sort of at this point full circle meets “Wow, where did all the years go?” But for the most part I don’t feel fifty, or whatever it is our pre-conceived notion of being and feeling fifty is supposed to be. Fifty can be vastly different even depending on what television show you watch and what magazine you look at.
Face it, fifty has gotten younger as we have gotten older. The fifty of the 1950s for example is very different than today. But then the roles of women have evolved too, so maybe that has something to do with it. Or maybe the fear of aging is just that much more pronounced now?
I found the image above and it cracks me up because I remember women’s household magazines in the 1970s showing women how to make duvet covers, curtains, and clothes out of sheet sets. I was born in the mid 1960s and when I first remember women that were “old” to me as a kid, i.e. middle-aged would have been the early 1970s. That was when I noticed how much more hip city women at the time seemed from suburban women and then there was a remarkable difference.
Today, women to an extent are more assimilated in some regards, but not all. But back then (for example) you might see hip city women in boho chic for summer and suburban women all Lily Pullitzer and Vera. The city gals were more free flowing and the suburban women more seriously buttoned up.
What defined fifty in my mother’s time of fifty was so different than what we see today. But also what I am noticing today to an extent fascinates me. And so many take themselves so seriously. They still don’t realize it is ok to color outside of the lines.
I have no issue with women who “take care of themselves”. But sometimes I think my friends and I are in the majority of not having “work done.”
To each their own, but after undergoing a couple non-elective and fairly major surgeries, I can’t imagine elective surgeries for new boobs, face, and so on. I also don’t get filling your face full of chemical fillers and well, botulism (well that is what Botox is).
I see women whose faces are shiny and other worldly luminous from chemical peels. It just doesn’t look normal to me, and some look like they could glow in the dark. I always wonder what they would look like if they just aged normally?
There are some women who I thought were among the most naturally beautiful when they were younger who are to an extent unrecognizable at times because of all the surgical augmentation and chemical additives to stay young. It baffles me. But I opted to stop coloring my hair and although it will take years for me to grey completely, I know I baffle a lot of women my age for choosing to do this.
And that is the key: how do we define aging today? Is it we are only as old as we feel, or we are controlled and conditioned by what we see around us on television, in magazines and on the Internet?
I see women basically my age trying to dress like their teenage and early twenties daughters. It doesn’t matter to me if they have the bodies or not, sometimes it makes me wince. They look silly at times, and cute is what they are going for. But then I think who am I to judge if it makes them happy? But it’s the whole be who you are thing, and how do they know if they have never seemed to try?
But I guess I don’t get at the end of the day wanting to look eighteen again. I mean eighteen was fun, but in a sense I am having more fun now than then. And why is that? Because at fifty I know who I am for the most part and at eighteen a teenage girl is still trying to figure it all out no matter how self confident they appear to be. It seems that at fifty I give myself more permission than I have in years to be myself.
I haven’t figured it all out and am definitely a work in progress. And I am trying to figure out what being fifty is exactly. So far it’s just another year, and not so bad!
Thanks for stopping by.
These are two old snapshots of Vermont taken approximately 25 years ago now. We used to go up there once in a while and stay at my father’s friend Patrick’s house in Bondville. It was a very happy place for all of us and quite beautiful.