"Girls" Should You Act Your Age?

ALOHA !

today's song-

"How old would you be 

if you didn't know

how old you were?"

  ~Satchel Paige

"You can't hide your true colours

as you approach the autumn of your life."

Author Unknown

"It's sad to grow old, but nice to ripen."

  Brigitte Bardot

 

I always knew that, with luck,

someday I'd be 50.

But never really believed it.

(No, today is NOT my birthday - yet :)

"I'm not old, just not young anymore."

said ex-screen star Alexandra Del Lago

in the film Sweet Bird of Youth.

One day in my early thirties,

I realized that I was the star

of every commercial, movie, TV show, magazine.

Everywhere I looked, things were being sold to me,

or by a woman like me.

We value what is hard to get.

  A young woman like I was then

is awash in testosterone.

(And perhaps hard to get)

  Men are everywhere

and she can read their minds,

because they all think alike.

If you read my novel, you know

that I have some familiarity with the sex industry

which is, after all,

the trafficking in beauty & desire.

But I remember too the longing

to be more than a sex object.

Too bad we can't bottle youth's surplus

of beauty & attraction

for days of scarcity!

Those days when we become

largely invisible

middle aged women.

And some of today's invisibility

would have been a comfort back then!

Joan Collins said,

"The problem with beauty

is that it's like being born rich

and getting poorer."

I still remember that time (years back now)

when I put on my make up and didn't see

the glow,

the magic in my mirror.

All I saw was me wearing make up:

the wealth was spent,

the illusion had fled!

Now I'm discovering the power

that comes to a

reasonably nice-looking

older woman;

The power to bless.

Younger people can act tiresome.

Young women can seem vain & shallow,

(just like I did.

I can read their minds, you see.)

But I smile like Buddha or Kwan Yin

or Mary,

blessing the people around me.

Sincerely.

I hope I look savvy, 

 kind,

and approachable

as I broadcast:

"Celebrate your beauty,

your choices,

your mistakes.

  That's the text of your life

out of which

you will tease the meaning

of

your personality &amp problems

from a wiser shore.

"The years teach much

which the days never knew."

  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I want them to see

that growing older is wonderful,

not a tragedy.

  They need that gift

in our youth obsessed

"culture."

"Look at me, I'm old but I'm happy."

sings Cat Stevens` Father in the song.

Regret is futile, ugly, and soul crushing:

for you and everyone else around you.

And besides, 

I don't want to look back from 

real "old age" and regret 

that I began to feel 'old'

in my comparatively young 50s!

After all:

"Fifty is the youth of old age."

  ~Victor Hugo

And there is still much adventure ahead!

Besides:

"Everyone is the age of their heart."

  Guatemalan Proverb

And

"We turn not older with years,

but newer every day."

  Emily Dickinson

 Besides,

denying one's age

merely alienates one

from one's self. . . 

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         How old do you feel today? cloudia