Every Living Thing
Or, on being old enough to know better
I don’t want to joke about getting older anymore. I don’t want to talk about age increasing in a derogatory manner.
I see girls who are twenty-five and younger posting on Substack Notes like, “Don’t fear aging, aging is a gift <3.” And it’s always a slideshow of the same six Pinterest photos of old women with wrinkles and severe creases in their bright blue eyeshadow.
I feel for them, because they say this now, but they have no idea how hard it’s going to be when they have to actually endure the effects of aging as a woman in a society where the only thing worse than a woman is a woman who’s old enough to know better.
I told a few friends and my therapist that my latest challenge to myself is to stop thinking about getting Botox. But each time I said, “Don’t hold me to that.” I expect I will fold eventually, but I really don’t want to. I used to assume I was increasingly on the brink of becoming “Botox and filler and La Mer night cream” obsessed. That I’d cling to the compliment “you look so much younger than your age!” out of fear that I might die if I ever stopped receiving it.
But now I think, “Wouldn’t it be lovely to just stop giving a fuck?”
And by that, I mean, “Wouldn’t it be lovely if I were just able to age in peace?”
Who am I kidding. I give myself two more months before I start thinking about Botox again.
I walked around Hollywood Forever Cemetery on a recent morning. I moved through the winding paved streets and the smaller brick paths of the graves of the dead and of course, I found a way to make it about me. I have been thinking about aging a lot lately, and being reminded that everyone dies in a very physiological manner and at a volume that feels endless in a graveyard will give you some much-needed perspective. A few of the gravestones’ dates stuck out because the gaps within the years were too small. I guess the girls with the Pinterest photos were right: aging is a gift.
Hollywood Forever is full of unexpected wildlife (most of which were brought in by an owner) as well as plenty of expected wildlife. On this one “neurotic aging contemplation” walk, I encountered peacocks, outdoor cats, a variety of birds, ducks, geese, white swans, koi fish and turtles. Every living thing moves. I noticed them all, each and every one. Because they are alive, they exist.
The real kicker is that a woman five or fifteen or forty years older than me could be reading this right now and thinking, I feel for her, because she says this now, but she has no idea how fucking hard it’s going to be when she has to actually endure the effects of aging as a woman in a society where the only thing worse than a woman is a woman who’s old enough to know better.
This is WAY too real. I constantly oscillate between feeling grateful for all that a decade or so has done for me (more financial stability, USUALLY more self assurance) and freaking out when people call me MA'AM (can we just STOP).
I feel this because I thought I didn’t care, and a part of that is because people consistently guess that I’m 5-10 years younger than I actually am. So I was surprisingly SO devastated when someone was able to guess my age correctly. Like something changed in me. And I feel bad and overly vain and guilty for caring? I dunno, I’m also in and out with it but recently my biggest complaint is more about how the body keeps score- I’m not even talking mentally, but that time I twisted my knee means my knee will forever be messed up. My sprained ankle will come back if I look at a curb wrong. Etc. muscle strains that normally will go away within a day or two now lingers for weeks. Basically: sigh. Such is life.