Twenty years ago, when I turned 60 and felt like I had crossed through the door to elderhood, I bemoaned getting old. I didn’t like seeing my grey hair, so many wrinkles, and such tired looking eyes. Hoping to reframe my thinking, a friend gave me the book Wise Women, by Joyce Tennyson. “Read this,” she said. “It will reframe your outlook.” The book jacket said it was produced to celebrate “the power and beauty of women in the third phase of their lives.”
As I paged through the compilation of portraits of women of achievement between 60 and 100, I saw vitality, confidence, and power. What struck me was not old age but survival and wisdom, which had its own unique beauty. The spark that shone through the craggy faces and wrinkles testified to lives well lived, having successfully navigated through the obstacle course that life throws at us.
Because I live in a culture which honors youth’s smooth skin and wrinkle-free bodies, and makes money by marketing thousands of products to keep the signs of aging at bay, we don’t pay attention to the beauty of an old face.
Perhaps we should be honoring the wisdom that comes from age and the wrinkles that accompany that achievement.
I’ve learned to keep Wise Women within easy reach. It’s there for me to look through again when I am feeling down about how old I look.