Happily Ever After
When I thought about “happily ever after” and what that could possibly mean (usually what kind of disappointment I was setting myself up for), one thing that I didn’t consider was it meant getting older. For some reason, once I finally “settled down” I didn’t picture myself as … well old.
It occurred to me when my Mother-In-Law over Thanksgiving noted that since breaking her foot she’s unable to achieve the same range of motion. She sighed and said acceptingly, “it’s OK, I’m getting older and my body just can’t do some of the same things it use to.” And I thought to myself, “she’s right it really IS ok”, it’s unreasonable to expect that as we age we’ll be able to do the same things. Yet this is exactly what I had hoped for.
It seems women all around me are struggling with changes. Whether the change is menopause, struggling to have babies, struggling to recover from babies, and I (thinking I was helping them) fight their struggles. I subconsciously targeted my research on how these women (and vicariously myself) could go back to the way they were before all of these changes. How to get your body back with yoga and diet after having a baby, how to use yoga (and diet) to maintain your physique after and during menopause, how to reduce wrinkles and stretch marks etc,.. I had bought into society’s silent judgement that only youthful looking women were desirable. Indoctrinated by years of TV and Hollywood, where the heroine is never middle-aged, or unattractive. And if by some chance a middle aged women, with an ungirlish body did make it to the big screen she was almost immediately killed off, or relegated a minor role not unlike a wise “witch doctor” (read “Lost”). I’ve been equipping myself to not be perceived as a witch doctor.
Yet these past years have also been the happiest in my life, and I hope that if I’m half as lucky as my mother (or mother-in-law) they’re only going to get better. So while I may have gained some inches, I also shed a horrible sense of style, and a waddle-like stride I still can’t completely get rid of, and most importantly more years means more time living happily ever after.
