Business Time: What Happens When You Suddenly Realize You’re Aging?
April 09, 2014
It’s Wednesday, which means just one thing—it’s Business Time! Below, Sarah LaFleur, CEO of MM.LaFleur, shares what’s on her mind this week.
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A few months ago, I noticed for the first time that I am aging. The grey hairs that used to be a one-off reaction to stress now grow in the dozens. I have tiny sunspots on my hands that were nonexistent only a few months ago. I feel embarrassed to even write this since I’m only thirty, and there’s an unspoken rule that it’s vain (and possibly un-feminist) to discuss aging at this point in life.
But it’s also a little bit scary to see your body change—even in subtle ways. These are things I have no control over, and, like any other involuntary process in life, it’s a “new normal” that takes some getting used to. For all the talk of aging in our culture, aging feels abrupt and surprising when you first notice it happening to you. It feels like a game you’ve been on the sidelines of, and now suddenly, the coach puts you in.
So, what to do now? I feel like I already have to do a lot to look semi-presentable (blow out hair, wear make-up, shave, do the occasional sit-up…). Do I now add “dye hair” and “remove sunspots” to the list?
I don’t care to look 23 indefinitely (that would be really weird, actually), but I do want to look good and feel presentable, no matter how old I am. For all the talk of aging “gracefully” and “naturally” in our culture, it seems like it takes a lot of work!
I recently got some much-needed perspective from Gail Collins’s piece, “This Is What 80 Looks Like,” about Gloria Steinem, who just entered her ninth decade. You’d think Gloria was always too busy fueling the feminist movement to worry about things like sunspots, but perhaps not. Always a woman among women, she had some soulful thoughts to share:
“Fifty was a shock, because it was the end of the center period of life. But once I got over that, sixty was great. Seventy was great. And I loved, I seriously loved aging. I found myself thinking things like: ‘I don’t want anything I don’t have.’”
What’s this? Gloria had some ups and downs, too? I’m glad she has ended up loving her latest life chapter, but it was strangely comforting to hear that it wasn’t a completely smooth sail.
Today’s media tends to take a black-or-white approach to aging: You’re either expected to fight it tooth and nail, or be totally Zen about it. For most women, it’s actually a much more nuanced proposition. As Gloria suggests, you might feel weird at 30, great at 40, uncomfortable at 50, fabulous at 60.
So while I’ve been a bit surprised to suddenly feel “old” (relatively speaking!) at 30, I’m curious to see how I’ll feel at 40, 50, and so on. Maybe aging is not a straight line, but a series of twists and turns. And maybe the wrinkles are just the beginning of a process that I’ll end up “loving.” I’m happy to follow Gloria’s lead on this one.
– Sarah
