What do you think of when I say to you, “I want to age fiercely?”
What kind of thoughts and words bubble up to the surface?
For me — since I can’t hear you at the moment — when I think of aging fiercely, I think of jumping up to be the first one onto the dance floor at a wedding.
I think of arms that have that sliver of definition running diagonally from shoulder to elbow. (That would be your fabulous triceps 💪🏻!)
It’s riding a bike over rolling hills with sweat dripping off your nose and onto your knees!
It’s waking up at 5 am because it’s hard.
It’s refusing to believe that strength decreases with age.
It’s putting on red lipstick to work out. 💋
It’s refusing to believe you can’t do something — even when you’re not sure you can. (Bad-ass bravery!)
It’s being over 50 and thinking, “I’m ready to start training for that triathlon now!”
It’s building muscle when all you’ve been told is you lose muscle as you age.
It’s knowing food cannot solve your problems.
It’s refusing to get caught up in the busyness of life.
It’s stepping into nature every day and paying such close attention that you notice even in the slivers of grass there’s an entire world buzzing and thriving.
It’s working on perfecting one push-up.
It’s being an eternal student of life.
It’s knowing you’re always a workout away from having more energy.
It’s pushing through the limits YOU set.
It’s pushing “yourself out of the suffocating insulation of personal safety and into the frontiers of the beautiful and the unexpected.” (I stole that from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic because I thought that was THE BEST description of kicking yourself out of your comfort zone I have ever read!)
It’s picking up weights. (The ones you used to use to prop the door open.)
It’s taking the best care of yourself by putting yourself first most of the time.
It’s wearing the sh*t out of your little black dress because you know you’re never too old to rock it!
It’s not being afraid to sing, dance, write poetry, or dart off to Greece to pick olives from a hillside in Krista because why the hell not?!
I also think it’s “to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly, or excluding, but with a kind of unassailable serenity — to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay but happy all the same when one is inevitable alone.” Edith Warton wrote that to a friend who was not aging fiercely in 1918.
That’s what I think of — it’s what I aspire to be.
So much life can emerge from being and staying active and it’s what I hope for us — to age as fiercely as we possibly can — and I do believe that one workout a day can give us all that!
Till next week my fiercely aging friend!
