Ep. 7 Can Growing Older Actually Mean Getting Better?

Does growing older have to be a bad thing? What happens when we question the societal story that we become less as we age? Can we get curious about what is actually exciting about the passage of time? Join MDL for a conversation about aging and how it can be a different experience than we were led to believe if we can learn to change our perspective and rewrite our assumptions.

Transcript

Hello everyone. This is Mandy Straight and you are back with messy designed life. I am so. I think excited to share this week's episode with you. It's something that I have been, um, thinking about for a long time and, and just keeps coming into my life and this is something that I feel so strongly about and I know that I'm not the only one because I think we are in a sort of revolution.

I think that this is a singular time. For today's topic that hasn't been talked about, hasn't been addressed, uh, the same way in history, that it is being addressed now, uh, in society. And I think that we, all of us, we have the opportunity to be at the forefront of this issue and changed the mentality on it, um, for the better.

I mean, it's gonna, it's going to affect all of us. And if you are looking at a video. Recording of today. If, if you're seeing the video and not just the audio, I wanna introduce my little sidekick that's on my lap because I am dog sitting and this little girl is, she's so sweet. I'm dog sitting. This little chihuahua, you're not seeing her face right at the moment.

She's so sweet. And, um, this girl has some, you know, her attachment is, is. The anxious attachment style. So, uh, if I put her knot on my lap, she will probably whine. So I just decided to let her join today. Um, and you'll probably see her face later. Her name is Ziggy, and if you can't see the video, Ziggy's joining us.

Anyway, she's just taking a little snooze while we have a chat. So today we are going to talk about being old and aging, and. I, I think it, it's not gonna be the same as the way that we have talked about it before. Last episode. We talked about turning 42, using that kind of, um, you know, uh, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, using that as the metaphor that 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Or I'm sorry, it's the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Um. Learning from last episode that it's not really about the answers, it's about the questions. And interestingly, so I have been meaning to do this episode and it just, uh, I, I hadn't quite gotten to it yet. I feel spurned on to do it or inspired to do it because before the previous episode, about 42, um.

Being about being 42. I went on Facebook and posted something like I, I posted a picture of me on my 40th birthday just 'cause uh, it was a, it was a picture and it was something that, that had some sort of age marker so that people could follow. Like, this is what the post is about. And of course that was two years, almost three years ago, the photo.

And I said something like, um. 42, the answer. Uh, what have you learned? What, what is 42 like for you? And if you, or after, what is it like being 42 or older? And if you're not 42 yet, what do you think that's gonna be like? And really, I was inquiring about the experience of whatever this age marks for us and what we thought it would be like before we get here and what it's actually like afterward.

If you listen to the episode. The responses that I got were not as intended. The responses that I got were by and large, and I mean like 99% of them were about Asian. It was about, oh, no, no, you don't look old. Oh, forties not old. It's awesome. Or, oh, like, you know, so many answers reassuring me that I didn't look old.

Um. Telling me that old isn't 40, it's later. And all of these things like very based around a mentality that I think society has today about aging. So what I wanna talk to everyone, with everyone about today is. What, what is this old thing, quote unquote old? What is that? When does it happen? What are the, the associations that we have with that label and how could that be expanded to something that's a lot more healthy and leaves room for a lot more self discovery and excitement and life enjoyment?

So I wanna start too by saying that. The, as I was researching 42, and as I posted that on Facebook, there were a, a few things came up with the term over the hill, which of course we've all heard Oh, over the hill. Over the hill, and it's this thing that is like this looming moment of life. Now we are over the hill.

We have hit that point, and once past that, it's all downhill from here. We have hit the apex. Of our life. We have hit the apex of everything we will do, and now it's all downhill and we're all gonna look back and wish we could be back on the other side of that hill that we climbed up and are now just slowly rolling down into death.

Right. I mean, this is over the hill. This is what it sounds like as we, as we hold it in the mindset of current society. And I even, I remember being a kid and. Uh, I, I mean, I would have to figure out how old I was. My mom was turning 30, actually, it may have been my aunt, my mom, or my aunt was turning 30.

These are how vague my memories are and, uh, as a kid, my sister and I were so excited because they had a cake with black frosting and they had black balloons and it was just so different than the normal birthday. That's like pink and blue balloons and it's bright and it's colorful, and. All of those typical birthday things.

And this one was black with black frosting on the cake and we ate it. Our mouths turned blackish purple, and you stick out your tongue and your teeth were all black. And uh, we just, we thought that was super fun and I. At the same time being that young, we were aware that this over the hill thing, 'cause all the balloons said over the hill and there was a gravestone on the cake that said over the hill.

I mean, these are, this is, this is how we're shaping this aging process in society at the moment. And um, interestingly, my mom or my aunt, whoever's birthday it was, was turning 30, they, they did this over the hill. Birthday at 30. And, and I think it's more common to do it, to do it at 40. And also I, I know too that, um, even some of the posts on Facebook said something about, well, you're not over the hill until you're 50.

And so whenever that happens. Between 30 and 50, whenever you feel like that is an over the hill moment. This is what I wanna address is what are the associations whenever you think that you're getting to that point. I, I actually looked up over the hill online and, uh, in, according to that online etymology dictionary.

The phrase over the hill originated around 1950. Before that, it wasn't even, it wasn't even a thing. And the reference, let me read this to you. The reference is that for the, of course, for the first part of our lives, we're going uphill. Then we reach a peak thereafter, we're descending and declining.

Miriam Webster dictionary defines over the hill as advanced in age and past one's prime. And Collins dictionary.com actually says, over the hill is a rude way of saying that someone is old, no longer fit, attractive, or capable of doing useful work. Wow. I mean, let's not even address the presidential election and the fact that they, I think, I mean, they're clearly both over 70.

I can't remember. I, I only pay. As much attention as I need to, to the whole thing. But let's look at that. We're having people run the country that we are also saying are not capable of doing useful work. So already there's a mismatch, there's something going on that's not treated correctly or not, uh, fully eye-opening.

Um, what am I trying to say? There's a contradiction. We're holding and not realizing we're holding it. And so there's this double-sided judgment where there's no winning because we're old. And that's what you get to be, to run the country. Arguably. Maybe 70 is too old, you know? Um, who knows? And at the same time we're saying, yeah, you're not capable of any meaningful work after you're 40.

And I, I think. So many of you will agree with me when I say that is incorrect, shortsighted, and, uh, loses so much of the priceless contributions in our society by humans that are over 40. Um, we we're just gonna miss out on a lot of things. So today I want to address, is it. What, what if possibly it's better on this side of the hill or maybe it's just different.

Maybe we get to, uh, shift the rules a little bit. Once we get to a different phase and we get to learn different things, we get to show up differently. Uh, we get to see from the other side of the Wizard of Oz curtain or some other metaphor that makes sense to say that. Maybe the way we did it till now was great and valuable and awesome, and maybe at some point it's necessary in life for us to say, ah, that was great.

Now we're shifting into something different. Uh, one, one year I went to Burning Man and had this massage that was this sort of energetic massage. And there was music playing and I was in this tent all by myself with the massage person, and it was, there was something about this moment that was transformational and I don't remember, I wish I could remember my intention that I set for the massage because I, I think that would be really helpful regardless, because I can't remember it.

There was. As woo woo as this sounds, take it or leave it or put it in a different context so it makes sense to you. Women have, uh, the archetypal transitions and phases of our lives, right? There's the maiden, the mother, the crone. I think there are actually some others, sorry if I'm forgetting them, but at a base level, those are the phases, and the maiden is the young woman and she's beautiful and there's, there's a lot of focus around love and around beauty.

And the mother, of course is the mother and. There's value to the mother. There's caring, there's offering, there's love and nurturing that the mother is bringing, and society could not function without the mother. And also the crone is intelligence, wisdom, experience. Uh, there's a peacefulness and ease that's available in the crone phase because there's less angst.

Less need or desire to be racing around and trying all these new things because you've tried a lot of things and now you can settle a little and, and hold space in a different way. In this massage at Burning Man, I, because of through, through the massage and the interaction and the, the experience, I had the opportunity to move from maiden to mother and that, um.

To me sounds weird to say out loud, so if you think it sounds weird, that's cool. We're on the same page. Um, I went in as a maiden. This happened. I mean, I was not quite 40, I was late thirties, and I am not gonna have children. That has been a conscious choice multiple times in my life. When I've checked in with myself.

It's not something I didn't have the opportunity to be trying a different path and this. Moment in this massage, I realized and felt very clear that there are a lot of ways to be a mother and that this time around, I don't need to do that in a literal birthing children raising them kind of a way. I also became very aware that I have so much to offer.

I. To give and to share and to support others and their process and their journey. And I am so grateful for that experience because one thing, one of so many that I think progressed and, and I could add too, as time goes on and I look back to that, one of so many things that I got out of that experience is that.

I came out of that tent. I walked out of that tent, and I didn't have the same need to be the maiden. There was something that had released in me that no longer needed to chase that phase of life, and it was, it was, I felt myself, my inner self turning towards something different and something new, and I did feel a loss.

I felt. A loss in the sense that when we leave anything there is loss of what was. And at the same time, I felt so curious and excited and I, my world felt expanded in a sense of, I, I used to only be able to see this one way, this maiden way. What, uh, you know, so many things that that encompassed. Now I have stepped into a new space that I still have to learn.

I didn't walk out knowing how to hold mother energy. I walked out no longer needing to stay in maiden energy. And what I learned from that is that we keep holding, uh, societally. I think we're told, hold on to this maiden energy. This is the only way to be desirable, valuable, to be able to offer anything to society.

The only way to do that and the only way to be a happy person is to have these maiden qualities. And me walking out that day and saying, oh, I, I get a whole new matrix to be involved in here within myself. I get a whole new set of parameters to, with which, from which to inspect and experience life. And so I am, I'm very grateful for that.

Experience. And what it did is, as with any transition, it opened up a whole new set of challenges that include, how do I embody this mother role? How do I embody this? And really within the mother role, how do I embody being a woman who. Is not the center of attention, is not trying to be the center of attention, not saying that I ever was, but who is not seeking, who is not seeking that kind of attention, who is seeking to identify what I can give, who is seeking to hold, who is seeking to understand myself and, and put my attention from the inside out on myself and say.

Who do I wanna show up as in a way that's not identified or limited by society and the outside? Because I think so much of what's expected by the outside is for us all to be in our twenties. So here's, here's something that happened as well, and I think it was maybe after that it was, it was after the Burning Man situation.

I was on my Pinterest feed and doing interior design. I am on Pinterest, I mean daily, multiple times a day, and it's my happy place. My Pinterest feed, I could spend hours on there because it's so beautiful. It's so many different ideas, images for me to interact with, right? It's rooms and spaces, it's jewelry, it's quotes, it's fashion.

All of that visually I get to interact with on Pinterest in a way that, oh, all day people, I could just scroll and pin all day and I. I'm scrolling through and I'm looking at some fashion posts and I start realizing, and, and I think I, I had some thought like, oh, but that wouldn't look like that on me because I'm not 20 or 25, or whatever the model was in the photo.

And I was like, well, yeah, of course it's not gonna look like that on me. I'm 40 or however old I was at the time. I'm, I'm 40, it's not gonna look like that. And all of a sudden. I, I have this awareness that if my feed continues to be filled with something I'm moving further and further away from. I'm going to feel more and more like a failure, and I'm setting myself up for that feeling of failure.

And this didn't feel, uh, it didn't feel frustrating. It felt like an enlightenment moment or, or like. Oh, that's why I haven't been feeling good. I just need to shift that. I just need to make a different, so I went to a board that I had on my, my Pinterest called Moxie, and I had started it for some other reason.

Um, just like I think powerful women posts, and it was images and quotes and all of this. And I was like, this is, this is perfect. We're gonna rewrite my Pinterest feed and I start pinning. I can't remember what I searched for, but I searched for older women fashion and I start finding and pinning photos of older women rocking it.

I mean, just rocking it. And I started to feel so encouraged and, and I think I just keep using the word excited. It just shifts everything. For me to have in my now. Now I open up my Pinterest feed and that's on there. I don't have to put it there. They know I wanna see it. This is the beauty. All I had to do is seed it and it's giving me what I want.

So now I open up my Pinterest and what do I have? I have great fashion, most of which is on women with gray hair aging women, women who are embracing their full selves and not. Airbrushed and trying. I'm, I'm sure they're still airbrushed. Let's be honest. Let's be super, super honest. I'm sure they are. And in these photos, there's an embracing of the age instead of a resisting of it.

And what can it change in our society, in your personal day-to-day experience? If we can rewrite. The story that getting older means worse every day. What if we actually turn our attention? Toward where we wanna go, not where we were not where society says is like, this is the pinnacle ideal moment of every human's life.

It's 25 and we should all look like that again. And we should all act like that. And that's the benefit of life is 25 and we're all gonna chase it after we get to 26. We're all just gonna be scrambling back and like. Like white knuckle, nails, nails into the ground, crawling as close back to 25 as we can get.

And I don't wanna do it. I, I don't want to, I want to wear less makeup than I've ever worn in my life. I do that now. I want to think less about leaving my house to get a coffee in the morning with no makeup on. I, I can't tell you how much. The image of what I was supposed to be affected me before, and I know this is very generally a life arc thing that we get to embrace and learn more about, and I wish that I could have learned a better when I was 25 or before that, and now that I start looking forward at something that I can't help but be.

I can't help but be old. There's no failing. I, I'm gonna be older by the time I finish recording this podcast, success, I've already won the question. Then, instead of being, how can I get closer to that thing, I keep moving away from 25 youth. The question becomes, what am I walking toward?

Because. Here's something too. This is what I was gonna say about, uh, my, my physical appearance and how, how that is different for me now. And it's still, of course, an ongoing, an ongoing process, is that I, oh man, you guys, I, I would leave the house before and I had to have done all my makeup. I had to have my hair done.

I had to have an. Right. It had to be selected and perfect, and say exactly what I wanted so the people would know. What would they know? I don't know. Something they would know I was worthy. They would know I was interesting. Uh, pretty, definitely pretty, I mean, thanks Disney movies when we were kids. Thank God those are changing.

I, I mean, one of my primary life objectives was to be pretty And what the heck did that, like I. The num the amount of time in my life I've spent on that, I, I could have done so many things and it is what it is. We can't go back At the same time, I, I can't go back. I can go forward and it has changed everything for me to turn toward where I'm going and say, what if I get really clear on 60 ish?

Year old women that embody what I want to walk toward, who I want to be. And do you know how many things that is clarified for me? This is, this is, it makes decisions so easy. Am I, I mean, I don't know if I'll make dec different decisions about plastic surgery later in my life or about. Breast augmentations.

I, you know, I, we all start to question these things as our bodies change, and I have no judgment about any decisions as far as this goes. This, this, um, perspective, this outlook of looking toward where I wanna be when I'm 60 helps me make those decisions well for myself. Maybe it can for you too. What does it change if it's not fighting to be 20?

If instead it's saying, here's the 60-year-old that I want to be in a way that embraces 60 in a way where the 60-year-old is meant to be, 60 is valued for being what that is and isn't scratching backward to try to regain time because time people. That is, we can't, we can't do anything about that one. So it was interesting.

And this is not to say, let me just interject this here. This is not to say that I don't have moments leaving the house where I feel fat, where I feel old, where I feel like you can seal my eye wrinkles. And I know I'm 42, almost 43, there aren't that many of them yet. I'm super aware, but I'm also aware of the fact that it's changing.

That, that at almost 43, it's different than it was three years ago, especially different than it was 10 years ago. So I'm aware, I'm aware of the changing, and yes, it takes effort. This is not something that I'm, like, I had the moment of enlightenment and I never will go back again. Well, I, I refuse to go back and live in that place.

That doesn't mean that place doesn't visit me every once in a while and I have to remind myself where I wanna be. The interesting part about that is that because I now have this Pinterest board or whatever medium would work for you, I can go to this Pinterest board and I can be reminded of where I'm going.

I can be reminded of what beauty looks like when it's embracing this moment instead of chasing that old one. And not only is my Pinterest like that, I started. Finding people to follow on Instagram. I started just changing all of my input to be not just age inclusive, but age celebrating, because I think there's so much there that we're missing as we keep looking back to 25, we miss what's here at 40.

At 45. At 55, whatever that is, we're missing it. If we keep looking at 25. W we can't see the thing right in front of us and there is so much value that comes with time and age. When, when I was a kid, I don't even know where this came from. I was, I was very much a tomboy. I liked playing with micro machines and teenage ninja turtles, and I wanted to run out on the playground.

I wanted to run around and. Play kiss tag. Totally. 'cause I really liked kiss tag, um, and soccer and kickball. I loved it. And I would fall down and get, you know, cut and scabs and whatever, and I didn't, I, you know, I kind of have a high pain tolerance anyway. I was like, yeah, bruises and scars show that you've lived.

And I would pick at my scabs and like, try to get a scar. Which I don't maybe know that, that that's maybe not the way to do it, but, but I absolutely had the mentality, the outlook that scars were evidence that we've lived. Scars are evidence that we've lived, and wrinkles are the same thing. 'cause I'm telling you, if I am 60, 70 and I don't have any wrinkles, what have I been doing with my life?

I certainly haven't been laughing, I haven't been crying and, and feeling the fullness of human emotion that we're here to feel. I, I haven't been doing that. I've been doing something else, so I am, I'm not interested in being 60 or 70 with no wrinkles because scars and wrinkles are, are evidence that we've lived, and I am curious how we can embrace that.

And in the same mentality. I'm curious. Once we get rid of that label of old and we say, I am now, I am 43. I am Mandy in 2024. I mean, once I start taking off this label, that's like a limiter. What's available. We, my partner and I have these, the little scooters. 'cause we live downtown. We have those little electric scooters that you can go around on.

'cause then we don't have to park and we can go to fun places that we don't feel like walking or, um, if it's just a little too far, we can take the scooters and they come, I think they come with limiters, or at least these were used. So they used to be lift scooters that somebody then sold, um, after they had too many or recycled to, got to get new ones.

And my partner, of course, being the speed demon that he is. Took off the speed limiters because they had speed limiters. So now those scooters cook, they go quick and you gotta, you gotta, if you get on that thing and you just floor the gas, and by floor I mean with your thumb, maybe a different kind of floor.

If, whatever, if you floor it with your thumb and you just go as fast as you can, you're, it's a little too fast. You gotta, you gotta start slower. And what I'm curious about is if we take off. This limiter that society has put on that is don't be old. If we take that off and we're like, cool, old na, I have no reaction.

It's an inert reaction. This thing about being old, if I take that off, what else is possible? That's what I'm curious about, because if I stop trying to stay young, what can I do? And I know just like with my massage that in transitioning out of this, this seeking of and, and idolizing of young and embracing that maybe we are not that anymore.

In doing that, there is something to be mourned. This is not something that I am lightly just saying, Hey, cool. Turn this way and keep going. It's simple and nothing needs to go with that. There. There is a loss. There's a loss inherent in saying, I'm not trying to be back there. There's a loss inherent in saying, I am acknowledging that I never will be, no matter how much I try.

There's a loss in turning from looking this way to looking towards something different. There's always a loss. So I think as we. Start working to shift this perspective and find what's possible. There's also a necessity to say what specifically for me in my life feels like a loss. As I do that, what can I acknowledge and mourn and respect that I am turning away from so that I can healthily release that?

Not be chasing it anymore. Then as we do that, which will be an ongoing process of course, but as we do the first phase of that, then turn toward something new. The question becomes, what is possible now? What have I been missing out on? Maybe there's some mourning in that. Man, I've been chasing 25 so long, I didn't realize.

How great it was to be 35. I don't know. I mean, I know I'm young. I think even at this point, if I weren't doing this now I can picture myself at 60 saying, oh my God, why didn't I realize that 40 was fine and not just fine? Why didn't I take 40 and say, hell yes. What am I doing now? So I wanna preempt that.

Do that morning of the maiden part of my life. Now, on an ongoing basis, maybe I might find new things and more on those. There might be something new. I'm telling you the difference between 40 and 43 is big. The number of things that have changed in the last three years as far as aging, my hormones are crazy.

I have pot flashes. I definitely have more wrinkles. In three years, I mean, at 40, I was like, wow, what are you talking about? This is really, to some extent, easy. Um, as far as feeling old, it, it felt a little bit easy, and then after 40 it started kicking in and I had to get real about what I felt about it within this whole shift of mentality, perspective and how we're holding this concept of what it means to be old.

There's a concept that I want to introduce that is getting aware and conscious of our measuring sticks. And we have these all throughout our lives, and usually they are unconscious and they create angst and pain and frustration because we don't realize that we're using them. So in this context, what that is, is what is my measuring stick?

How can I look like I'm 25, is my measuring stick? 25 is the ideal age for a person to be, or a woman to be, or me to be? Is that my measuring stick? 25. And so as I measure myself success, happiness, satisfaction, contentment, as I measure all of those things against my measuring stick, is my measuring stick 25 or is my measuring stick?

60 and walking toward the 60-year-old woman that I have in my mind that that I can not help but get closer to. And in doing that, in looking at that 60, I have different motivation to treat myself well. I drink more water because that 60-year-old woman, she's healthy, her body's happy. If I wanna walk toward that one more glass of water today gets me closer in a really easy kind of a way.

Getting up and doing 20 minutes of Pilates in my office by the front window where I like to do it for the, for the sunshine. Getting up and doing 20 minutes of Pilates takes care of that 60-year-old me. And being that I'm in the mother phase. Taking care is something that I get to learn how to do better and better, and how can I take care of that future self by changing my measuring stick to that by making my measuring stick help healthy, fulfilled content.

At 60,

it changes everything.

We are gonna stop this here for today in the interest of keeping the episodes around the same length, which I know is against the mentality of messy design life because it's less messy. But we're gonna do it and stop there. I will leave you with a couple thoughts for next week. If we think about, when I was a kid, what the quote unquote older woman looked like.

It looked like the golden girls. And that was even a positive representation of the older woman. Usually the older woman was deleted, completely not present. And that I think is why some of us, all of us right now find it so hard to find good examples of how to do this. Because previously, prior to this phase of doing this, women over 40 have just been deleted and, and.

Not included in the narrative of society because they were labeled as unimportant and no longer interesting because they didn't have the sex appeal. Back to my childhood experience of growing up on Disney movies, think of the older women portrayed. In Disney movies, in fairytales, the older woman is either the fairy godmother or she is the evil stepmother.

So those were the options, or she's just non-existent and that's not a lot to go off of men. I, I think it's different and I would be really curious to have a conversation with someone to have more understanding about that, because I do think it's pretty different. And we could learn a lot from it. Thank God things are changing.

If we think about J-Lo doing the halftime show at the Super Bowl, that was not only a powerful woman who I believe she was 50 when she did it. She's not only stepping up to show us what a powerful woman is looking like, but also to show what a powerful woman at an older age can look like in a sexual context.

We don't have examples of that either. So isn't it about time we start creating that? I wanna leave you with a quote from Mel Robbins. She says, stop shrinking to fit what you've outgrown. And my friends, if we have outgrown 25 at 40, man, I hope we have. I hope I have, because I don't wanna go through the same patterns, the same limitations that I put on myself or society helped to put on me, helped me to put on myself when I was in my twenties.

Now at 40, maybe at 42, maybe I can stop shrinking to fit what I've outgrown and start understanding that the container is now different and I can grow to fit this new container of being in older age. I'll see you next time. Thank you so much for joining. This same conversation will continue and I look forward to having it with you.

Until then, stay messy my friends.