Aging is Kind of Badass, Actually

Epiphanies are the best. I derive a distinct sort of pleasure from distilling, reframing, and refreshing my view on a previously stale topic.

The epiphany that’s currently marinating in my mind might prove to be a potent one for me, and I’d like to think it may even help someone reading this. This particular paradigm shift was sparked by a casual online exchange, as described below.

On Twitter, in response to a stranger’s post that said “Please tell me that it gets better at 30,” my cool buddy Hamilton (a writer in his own right) assured her that your 30s are indeed better than your 20s.

I warmly agreed with Hamilton’s agreement and added that based on my experience, your 40s are also better than your 30s.

Then our cool mutual friend Jennifer assured both of us that your 50s are even better than your 40s.

Not to be outdone, when I later shared the exchange on Facebook my also-cool friends Mark and Amy testified to how happy they are in their 70s.

I love every single thing about this exchange. And I’ll tell you why.

Walk down a Hallmark aisle and read a dozen of the “humorous” birthday cards for adults (like the one above). You will likely conclude that everyone over 33 ⅓ years old is already aghast at their age.

The greeting-card industry makes us feel obligated to begin feeling uneasy about our age at 35, have an early mid-life crisis at 40, and consider ourselves almost antiquated at 45. By the time we’re 50, Hallmark would have us believe we should be self-deprecatingly (and perhaps even self-loathingly) belittling ourselves and each other for apparently being as decrepit as the Cryptkeeper.

And how do you think that makes people feel who actually are in their twilight years? How does it make a 78-year-old feel when she hears 53-year-olds making jokes about themselves being “old”?

So here’s a hot take for you.

Hallmark. Hates. The elderly.

You heard it here first.

All jokes aside, though, I am convinced this aversion to the aging process — and to one’s own age — is an insidious and wildly unnecessary construct. And it is cynically foisted on us by avaricious anti-aging industries that prop up a youth-obsessed society.

This phenomenon has irked me since I was in my 30s, trying to find non-obnoxious birthday cards for my then-60-something parents, and now that I’m 45 it irks me even more.

Rather than expanding this into a polemic, though, I want to keep it personal. I will be 46 years old in two weeks (halfway to 92!) and not to brag or anything, but…

I am very proud to be in my mid-40s. I like the way 45 sounds. I like the sound of 46 too, and 47, and I’ll like the sound of 50 when I get there. Both of my big brothers have reached that milestone with plenty of enthusiasm to spare, and I plan to do exactly the same.

(55 sounds even cooler to me than 50, but to be honest that’s because I just like how double-numbers look.)

It’s not just wanting to buck a societal trend or resist a stale view of aging, though, that makes me feel this way. My position on the matter isn’t a fundamentally combative one. It’s positive, and it’s based on my actual lived experience.

I have deeply relished my 40s so far. In this time of my life, I’m having the time of my life. In so many ways, this decade suits me perfectly. It suits me even better than my newlywed pre-dad 30-something years or my freewheeling pre-marriage 20-something years, the two decades for which people most often nostalgize.

In my 20s, I was chasing something valuable but a bit elusive. I was trying to be something new, in contrast to what I had previously been as a teenager. Then in my 30s, I felt like I had finally fully found my self. In hindsight, though, I hadn’t quite found myself.

But here in my 40s I feel as comfortable in my skin, splotchy and grey-whiskered though it is, as I have at any point in my life. I know who I love and I know what I love. I know how I want to spend my days and I know how I don’t want to spend my days. I enjoy my own company, and I’m not all that concerned with the opinion of others. (Well okay, like, I mean, I do like to be liked. But I no longer mind the possibility that someone might dislike me.)

I wear my goofy-frugal-day-trippin’ dad crown with pride. I try to spend all my non-work, non-sleep time making memories with my kids and embracing my favorite kinds of self-care: Solo hiking, going to the movies, looking forward to concert road trips, grabbing a beer or a coffee with my buddies, and listening to absolutely ungodly amounts of music in my earbuds.

(Okay, the amount is not ungodly. I think God fully approves.)

That’s what almost-46 looks like for me. And I fully intend for 56 and 66 to be just as full of joy and music and general pastime-ing… even now, it’s past time I do exactly that.

Life is for living!

And I have every intention to live.

I’ll cede the floor to Mark Twain for the last word on the subject.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

Me at the end of the world (well okay, World’s End State Park) last spring, on my first of what will hopefully be a sporadic series of solo road trips.