Beauty and Time

Are you afraid of getting older?

I was struck today looking at two pictures of my woman Linda and her mom Keiko: one taken in July 1982, and the other in May 2013, just a few months before Keiko died.

Keiko and Linda making manju, July 1982
Keiko and Linda, May 2013
Keiko and Linda, May 2013

In both you can see the connection between mother and daughter, and though age had changed both of them in the later picture, the shared beauty between them remained very similar.

I think we have a distorted view of aging in the US; it seems as though most people feel it is something to be avoided, or that we should somehow pretend that it doesn’t apply to us. To some degree I am part of that too: I color the grey out of my hair, mostly because I’m in a career where most of the people I work with are my kids’ age, and I’m afraid I might scare them! 😉  But I certainly don’t deny my age; instead, I am proud that after 56 years I am still strong and active (more so than many of the people I know who are 20 or even 30 years younger than I), and find that my 56-year-old woman is more vibrant, witty, and attractive than any woman I have ever met.

How about you? I assume you’re planning on getting older than you currently are, so how are you going to deal with it? Is aging something you fear?