The Afternoon Of Life

“A human being would certainly not grow to be 70 or 80 years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species to which he belongs. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.”  ~Carl Jung

Yesterday afternoon I went for a long winter walk with four other women. We cannot pretend we’re in middle-age because the likelihood of any of us living past 116 or so is nil. We were all sensibly dressed for the cold and snow with layers, toques, mitts, and cleats on boots.

The conversation turned from aging parents with advancing dementia to aging itself. One woman lamented the thickening of the waist and how difficult it is now to lose a couple of inches.

As I drove home I pondered this conversation, but also how hard it is for women, at any age, to look at themselves as beautiful.

I don't generally post pics of others, but they would now all be women around my age and I don't think they'd mind and look how beautiful we were. That's me in the centre with the red skirt.

Then I dug out this old picture of myself with a group of friends taken 40+ years ago, I don’t know the exact year. Did we know how beautiful we were then? And what if we knew then what we know now? Would we have made different choices? Would we have appreciated ourselves more, compared ourselves to others less?

We were holding ourselves up to impossible standards, set by glossy magazines portraying skinny white models. We fretted over hair that was wavy when we wanted it straight, the occasional pimple, bushy eyebrows that needed pruning, and that very common brown girl obsession - dark, hairy arms. Maybe brown girls still worry over that? I hope not.

As women today, are we still sweating the small stuff about our appearances and holding ourselves up to standards? Standards that devalue the crinkles and wrinkles, the greying hair and changing texture, the thickening waistlines? Fifteen years from now we will look back and say – did we even know how beautiful we were then?

So what if…we take that fifteen-years-from-now thinking and apply it today? What if, every day, we look at ourselves in the mirror and acknowledge the marvel and beauty of our bodies, these bodies that have carried us through life, borne and nourished children, hiked up mountains, rowed on rivers, paced at night soothing a crying baby, submitted to surgeons’ scalpels and the thrum of MRI and radiation machines? 

We know we no longer want youth. We’re done with that. But we do want to hold onto vibrancy and purpose. At this age we can shake off the shackles of doing what we’re expected to do, the pressure to conform to certain roles. But, as we simplify our lives, can we also rid ourselves of the yoke of enduring, youthful appearances being highly desirable?

What if we looked at ourselves, not with today’s critiquing eyes but with the kinder eyes of our future selves?

  “The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts and we grow happier as we grow older.” ~William Lyon Phelps

“My physical body may be less efficient and less beautiful in old age. But God has given me an enormous compensation: my mind is richer my Soul is broader and my wisdom is at a peak. I am so happy with the riches of my advanced peak age that, contrary to Faust, I would not wish to return to youth.”   ~Robert Muller