After 50, birthdays start to feel less like celebrations and more like reminders that time is running out. When we’re young, we can’t wait to be 16, but turning 20 means we are leaving our youth behind. Then suddenly 30 hits like a hard stop sign, we need to start really behaving like adults but we’re not sure we know how. But 60? That one brings a sense of urgency. Time has already been speeding up, but now time is running out. Fridays are coming quicker, Mondays are descending harder. If 60 years has already felt like a blip, how exactly am I supposed to crash course everything that I have always wanted to do in the next 25 years? And so I turned it all up and took off to S. Africa to be with my son after he studied with artists in Zimbabwe. I also leaped at the opportunity one year later to live in an apartment for a Spanish immersion class for three weeks, and … I went to Germany to visit my mother’s past, and to Italy for a romantic “work” trip.
It’s true that there is a beautiful side to aging. Everything seems to intensify, almost as if the world has shifted into 3D. The sculptural forms of trees stand out more sharply against the dawn light, and the hundred subtle shades of green in the vegetation feel more vivid, and, for those of us who can allow ourselves to slow down enough to notice, our connection with animals deepens. Sitting in my garden observing the pollinators, bold hummingbirds dart over to inspect me, almost nose to beak, wondering if I’m different kind of flower from which they can drink my nectar. Their phosphorescent wings blurring into colors while their tiny bodies hover in perfect stillness.
And then there are our senses that seem to intensify, bringing forth memories with sharper clarity and new meaning, allowing us the luxury of looking back on all of our painstaking decisions in order to better understand why we took the paths we did, and how each one has shaped who we are today. It’s a revealing game to revisit those choices and imagine how differently life might have unfolded with different jobs, husbands and even children.
There’s comfort in realizing that memory-making doesn’t end with age; it simply evolves. Our grown children now spend time with us mimicking our behaviors, often in jest, sometimes unknowingly weaving them into their own personalities.
But with the beauty of slowing down, there also came a pressing feeling that I no longer belonged in my town where I once felt in the center of, and a lack of desire to keep up with the changes and the collective unhealthy need to be thin, and perfect and seen, but being skinny is unhealthy, and abstaining from food is a bore. I was over it and became restless, craving authenticity and more normal social dynamics.
After spending years rooted in family and work, nurturing others, building things, tending to everything, my own growth had been happening on the fly without the time for intention. Now, with the boys grown I sensed it was time to step outside the frame of my life and see what new edges awaited.
Redefining what aging means
My story isn’t about denying age. It’s about redefining it. It’s about refusing to fade, and instead, re-engaging with what makes me feel alive. I’m still aging, we all are, but I’m doing it with curiosity, rebellion, and love. Because growing older isn’t about fading away. It’s about becoming more vividly you.
