The Fear That Stalks Me

Aging isn’t about appearances, it’s about what I stand to loose

From the moment I wrote this month’s prompt theme for Modern Women, I knew I would have to respond to it. I’m 44, and I’ll be 45 in just eight weeks. There feels like something monumental in that number, a definite landing in ‘middle age’

One of the biggest fears I have about ageing isn’t what I will look like or the slow disintegration of my body’s ability to move as well as I want it to, it’s about the people around me.

I’ve loved the vampire myth for as long as I can remember, being present for Anne Rice’s rise to fame in the 90’s didn’t hurt, but as much as I fantasied about living forever, there was a curse that came with the gift that was reflected in my own life.

The longer you live, the more people you will have to loose.

An Irish child, I come from a large extended family and my childhood was shaped by funerals and weddings. Both were celebrations of sorts and times enveloped in family, but one of them terrified me about the future.

I remember my first open casket. My Nana’s waxy skin and frozen expression. It felt like an eternity that we stood in the room with her, and the crowds queued along the street outside, taking their turn to spend a moment of farewell with her and acknowledge our family’s loss. The cold from the open door wrapped around my ankles, wrists and neck, finding it’s way under and between the gaps in my clothing.

I couldn’t stop staring at her. Amazed at how she looked like she was sleeping until you touched her and realised how cold she was. The same cold that brushed over my skin. What would it be like to be cold forever?

Watching my mother and her siblings grieve, I wondered who would stand next to me when it was my mother in the box in front of everyone? Would my legs be strong enough to stand as a witness to the collective grief for hours? Would I be strong enough to leave her in the cold?

I’m almost 45 now and it seems I’ve reached the age of ‘serious conversations’. Those ones you know you must have but also avoid at all costs. Who wants to confront the truth that the people you love most in the world will one day leave it and you, far behind?

We’ve talked about her wishes, decisions have been made and plans put into motion. I know it will help at the time when my eyes will be too watery to see words written on a page, and I also know that each conversation moves me that step closer to acceptance. No child could ever be ‘ready’.

At my core there lives a younger version of me who demands to know why we have to grow up. Why should time keep marching if it means everyone has to get older and leave. Why?

It works the opposite way too as I am the mother watching her children age, worrying about the time when I won’t be here for them, and even before that, feeling the small daily losses woven through with pride and happiness as they become steadily more independent, more distant in some ways and stepping further and further into their own lives.

Bittersweet, inevitability and I suppose a sign of a life well lived, that I have loved so widely and fully that I have many I will loose in different ways.

My fear of ageing isn’t just focused on the people in my life, there is a sense of grief for the lives I ‘could’ have lived.

I was raised with the belief that I could do anything, be anything. And I genuinely grew up certain that the only thing standing in my way was my own motivation and not dreaming big enough.

Yet, over the past few years, for the first time, I have acknowledged the closing of some of those many doors which I always imagined were open to me.

Perhaps visiting the moon isn’t on the cards for me, there’s not much hope of me making it into an astronaut program at this point, and while Musk and others are doing their best, I don’t foresee me having that kind of disposable income any time soon. Perhaps I won’t be a professional dancer, and perhaps Hollywood won’t know my name (though there’s always the shot of writing a great book).

My point is at some point I began to accept that I am older now, though being ‘middle aged’ isn’t a label that fits just yet.

I saw a meme this week showing the different between 54 now and 30 years ago. When I was young 54 looked like one of the Golden Girls (if you’re old enough to remember who they are), and 54 now looks like Jennifer Lopez! That is a huge leap in both perception and expectation.

My fears of what I will become over the next decade are wrapped up in an understanding of ageing created by watching the image offered by shows like the Golden Girls. While I would love to find enough time and money to devote to my body and physical health, I don’t think I have it in me to look like JLo in ten years.

Aside from the physical vitality, I can’t help but thinking that between those two examples lies a world of lifestyle changes, from the fragile, retired grandmother archetype whose life within the world has become smaller, her impact extending only to her closest family and friends and who isn’t expected to have burning ambitions or desires. To the older but liberated woman who has finished her time as devoted mother and is entering a phase of pleasure, expression and adventure. I know which one I’m on course to be.

The young women of today are lightyears away from those of the 90s. The way today’s culture views our physical appearance, the ways in which we demand and expect to be treated, the acknowledgment of our mental and emotional health and the deep understanding that we are the only ones who shape our existence.

It truly is the most amazing time to be alive, and perhaps that will make it the best time to age.

Maybe I can look to the future feeling grateful for the loves that I have had which will in time be lost, I could also look to a future in which my life is lived fully enough that in making the most of my time, I will not grieve the loss of my vitality because I will have spent it well.

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