aging

An important aspect of the ebbing of sex was that other things became interesting. Sex obliterates the individuality of young women more often than it does that of young men, because so much more of a woman than a man is used by sex.

Some women I talk to are so frightened of growing old. I sense their desperation. They say things like I m not going to live to be old I m not going to live to be dependent. The message young women get from youth culture is that it s wonderful to be young and terrible to grow old. If you think about it it s an impossible dilemma how can you make a good start in life if you are being told at the same time how terrible the finish is Because of ageism many women don t fully commit themselves to living life until they can no longer pass as young. They live their lives with one foot in life and one foot outside it. With age you resolve that. I know the value of each day and I m living with both feet in life. I m living much more fully... The power of the old woman is that because she s outside the system she can attack. And I am determined to attack it. One of the ways in which I am particularly conscious of this stance is when I go down the street. People expect me to move over which means to step on the grass or off the curb. I just woke up one day to the fact that I was moving over. I have no idea how many years I ve been doing that. Now I never move over. I simply keep walking. And we hit full force because the other person is so sure that I am going to move over that he isn t even paying any attention and we simply ram each other. If it s a man with a woman he shows embarrassment because he s just knocked down a five foot seventy year old woman and so he quickly apologises. But he s startled he doesn t understand why I didn t move over he doesn t even know how I got there where I came from. I am invisible to him despite the fact that I am on my own side of the street simply refusing to give him that space he assumes is his

You start out happy that you have no hips or boobs. All of a sudden you get them, and it feels sloppy. Then just when you start liking them, they start drooping.

Lines don__ make beautiful women less beautiful

Now is the time to become a myth.

The old who refuse to die merely on principle live on forever, to hate life and complain of all the things they could have been spared had they the good sense to die young.

You will try to improve me, Captain, but I tell you it cannot be done. I am resigned to moral apathy and corporeal decrepitude, and have done with projections. No, Captain,_ with a pining sigh, __ think I will simply sit in the shade and wait for either a customer or death, the latter I might prefer, at such a point.

After a certain point, all natural bodily changes are for the worst.

As you get older; you've probably noticed that you tend to forget things. You'll be talking with somebody at a party, and you'll know that you know this person, but no matter how hard you try, you can't remember his or her name. This can be very embarassing, especially if he or she turns out to be your spouse.

I've never stopped wanting to cross the equator, or touch an

Your age is measured by your dreams not by the years.

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.

In any case the friendships of later life, in contrast wih those negotiated before thirty, are apt to be burdened with reservations, constraints, inhibitions.

Though my hair has grown grey now, and my sight dim, and my heart cold with years, and ennui, and disappointment, and treachery of friends, and yet I have but to lean back in my arm-chair and think, and those sweet figures comes rising up before me out of the past, with their smiles, and their kindnesses, and their bright tender eyes!

Somehow she knew there would be an unspoken truce on their unspoken battle over God knew what when they were old. They could both surrender to their innate grumpiness. It was going to be a lovely relief.

The water doesn't know how old you are.

Our brains resist change, they rail against it, our amygdala will always want the safe bet. But are the obstacles truly insurmountable? Is it a brick wall? Or is it a sliding door, which, once you decide to approach it, begins to swish open? Because even though our brains prefer safety in the short run, in the long run they crave meaning, challenge, and novelty.

The older you grow, the younger your fears grow!