Fifty And Fabulous! Don't Let Your Age Hold You Back

There's no way you'll catch me insistently denying the need for a bone-density check-up, avoiding mirrors, or desperately reading articles like WebMD's "50 Great Things About Women Over 50" in some desperate attempt to make myself feel better (it is a worthy read, though) when I turn the big five-oh this February!

No, I won't be whining "Where did the time go?" or "Who's face is that in the mirror?" and I definitely won''t be rushing out to get a 'Lifestyle Lift' or an overpriced girdle. Instead, I'm going to defy society's expectations of aging women with confidence and wait for it ... simply love and celebrate myself.

I find that the older I become, the wiser I get, yet the less I know. However, I do know this: all of the same things seem to happen no matter where we are in life, especially when it comes to having struggles and demons. We all have some inner demons—the things we've been trying to overcome for half a century or more and still can't seem to get straightened out-no matter our age!

The struggle to overcome them just seems to get tougher as we get older, because society starts breathing down our necks about what we should and shouldn't be doing! Their stereotypes of the perfectly 'mature' woman none of us will ever be and step by step instructions on how to age with 'grace and dignity' (Who defines these things, anyway?) suffocate our ability to find our own paths and grow at our own pace.

Regardless, there's simply no sense in holding ourselves back from all the growing we've still left to do with fear and self-criticisms, just because we've lived to see a certain day on the calendar. The more we love ourselves and accept ourselves, especially the imperfections and life experiences that make us uniquely who we are, the more love and acceptance will come our way. The more we defiantly dispel the negativity and struggles from our hearts and replace them with love, the younger we'll look and feel. That's because love, even love for oneself, has no age!

Perhaps you'll spend your fiftieth birthday cringing at the cheesy "over the hill" cards you'll be given or the number of candles on your cake, but I simply won't. Who cares if society expects us to closet our sexuality, reflect back on our lives as if they're already over, and stultify our wardrobes to fit the stereotypical style of a 'mature' woman? I simply don't. I'll spend my special day enveloped in some sultry self-acceptance and planning all the great things I want to do with my next 50 years …

You see, as Mother Teresa once stated, "It was never between you (me) and them anyway ... "