Only my hairdresser knows for sure

Remember that commercial? I can't even remember what color my hair really is - but that's a small part of aging gracefully for me.


I wonder what I was thinking when I suggested this as a topic for our blog - perhaps I wasn't thinking at all. Because I'm not sure just what that means. Does it mean letting it all hang out and not worrying at all about how or even if you're aging? Does it mean fighting every wrinkle, every sag, every grey hair?


For me, the answer is somewhere in the middle, something about balance.


I'm not the woman I was 30 years ago or even 10 years ago. I'm better. Certainly I'm better emotionally and intellectually. I've learned a lot of lessons - the most important of which for me seems to have been to enjoy the moment. The trick for me, I suspect, is to keep on getting better physically as well.


I don't want to run a marathon. I don't want to go to the gym every day. I don't want to bulk up. What I do want is to feel good in every way and that means walking an hour a day (which is easier than it sounds seeing as I live downtown and don't have a car which means I walk everywhere) and swimming for half or three-quarters of an hour two or three times a week and maybe even (when I get the time) taking a yoga class once or twice a week. I'm talking gentle exercise and mostly exercise that relaxes me as well as energizes me. I'm a big fan of the middle path.


I like the woman I am now. I'm not one of those people who remembers being young as the best time of her life. I enjoyed it, I did, and if you ask I'll tell you about those parts that aren't censored, but you could pay me a million dollars and I wouldn't be a teenager again. Or even in my twenties. I like this Kate Austin.


I like the things she knows and the things she knows she doesn't know. I like the fact that she's way more willing than she used to be to admit that she doesn't know everything - just almost everything. I like the way she can laugh about herself.


I like the way she's willing to make a fool of herself and try something new. I like the way she's open to new experiences and new people. I like the way she'll talk to anyone. I like the work she's doing and the books she's writing. I like the amazing, astonishing, wonderful women and men she's meeting. I like the way she appreciates what she has and who she knows. I like the way she - finally - understands that love and friendship and joy and laughter and tears don't need to be hoarded but need to be shared. I like the way she knows that she's got more than enough of all those things for everyone.


So I guess you could say that I am aging gracefully. And joyously. And I definitely can't complain about that.


Kate

Growing Older

I'm older than most people think I am. At my high school reunions I always win the award for the most NOT changed. I kid people by telling them I have an aging portrait that I keep in the attic. My house does have an attic, but it has no floor and I never go up there.

When I was in graduate school one of the questions the professor asked us was to name some things that technology had made obsolete. My small glass of thirteen frowned and scratched their heads. I rattled them off like jelly beans. His comment, "You're a lot older than you look."

Same thing happened with a doctor when I went for a colonoscopy (now you know my age). He looked at me and said, "Why are you here?" These comments made me feel good. If they couldn't tell my age by looking at me, I must be doing it right.

I believe I'm growing old gracefully. Of course, I don't know what my real hair looks like because I keep having it done and redone. But why not? It makes me feel good and I'm the only one that I need to please. I've long since stopped doing things to please other people. That's a strong statement and I don't mean I'm a mean person, but if there is something I want to do, I don't need approval to do it. That's the me that's pleasing me.

I'd say growing old gracefully runs in my family. My parents died at young ages, but some of my aunts and grandparents lived long lives. Now that I'm equal to or older than some of them who have passed away, I can see that at the same age, I look as good or better than they did. I exercise (walking two miles a day) and try to eat right, although I didn't even think of resisting the chocolate at the recent Romance Writers Conference. I don't think that's all of it, however.

You just gotta be lucky.

And since I think I got gipped on the long hair and boobs genes, I at least got the good skin, weight control and non-dimpled thighs ones.

Getting older does worry me some. I have so much I want to accomplish and I'm afraid I won't get to do some things. I have a five year old to raise and educate, and I pray that she's an adult before I pass into the next level of creation.

I plan for the event by keeping things in order like wills and insurance and making sure my family knows where they are and how to get them. I also make sure they know that I have collections of value that they may not realize, like my first edition Nancy Drew novels and a huge non-DVD record collection, the vinyl stuff. Some of those are worth a lot of money.

All any of us can do is take it one day at a time and live it as if there was no tomorrow. And being romance writers, we all believe there is another day to live and love.

Speaking of living and loving, I love that song from RENT about 525,600 minutes. The end of the song says there are 525,600 minutes of love in a year. What a wonderful thing for anyone!

Aging, Gracefully Or Not?

Aging? Who, me?

I don’t like to think about that, but this morning I’m almost forced to admit that time is, yes, marching on. I just got home after nearly a week in Dallas at the annual RWA (Romance Writers of America) conference, and as usual I didn’t get enough sleep.

Who needs sleep when a bunch of normally reclusive writers get together and the much-needed chatter starts flying? It was so good to see people from the various chapters to which I’ve belonged, and still miss, and to meet others among our group of Nexties with whom I’ve e-mailed. The PAN (Published Authors Network) workshops, plus a number of RWA sessions, certainly helped to recharge my creative batteries—one of the best benefits of going to conference each summer. And all those fabulous meals when I’m more used to simpler fare, even sandwiches all but inhaled in the race to finish a book by August? What a treat. It seems safe to say that a great time was had by all.

My stay in the beautiful conference hotel, the Hyatt Regency, was almost enough to make me forget the hassles of travel. My trip home proved to be quite a challenge—delayed flights, lost luggage (with all my best clothes inside the missing suitcase)—but I’m here. And ready to work again. Never mind that my not-quite-youthful body is still struggling to readjust after that (finally) five a.m. arrival in Chattanooga. My bag, thank goodness, did eventually, and unharmed, show up at my door. (sigh of relief)

But today—yes—I’m feeling a wee bit old. Older, that is.

How else to explain the white face I see in my mirror? Or those new dark shadows under my eyes?

Still, there’s hope. My mother-in-law will turn eighty-nine in October. She still wears makeup, styles her hair in her signature red beehive, and has her nails done, fingers and toes. Last week, while I was in Dallas, she went with my husband to dinner and the theater. She and I are planning a girls’ day out soon to shop for an end-of-summer suit she can wear to my younger son’s wedding in August. She’ll be taking the trip to Connecticut then, a traveler herself at nearly ninety.

Graceful? Yes. Old? I don’t think so.

There have been lots of articles written lately about the now-retiring Baby Boomers. In fact, we Nexties did a workshop at RWA on just that topic, well, and with some sex thrown in for spice. Our somewhat older characters still know their way around a bedroom! Today’s retirees are no longer riding off into the sunset of their years, or plunking down in a rocker on the front porch.
We—and our characters—are moving and shaking and developing second careers. My husband, for example, is in New York right now, building his new business as a consultant to the financial world. He’s been busier than ever since he took early retirement in February! No grass grows under his feet. And then, again, there’s his mother who must have given him that energy and drive, a little of which I could certainly use today.

Right now I’d rather take a nap.

But that’s not going to happen. I have a book to finish for Next. My forty-four-year old heroine and her still-hunky-at-forty-six ex-husband are waiting.

And as further inspiration I’m reminded of my great grandmother who lived to be 105. Even then, she thought of herself as a young bride.

With so many grand examples like these, I’m convinced that the old saying is true: Aging is a state of mind.

Or—to use another cliché—you’re only as old as you feel.