Aging with Grace

My oldest and dearest friend
sent me this email this morning

We were born
one week apart
and will both turn 50 next year

I had to share this with
all of you today

Here's to growing well
inner beauty
and warm hearts
xoxo
Patti

A Middle Aged Women Looks At the Headlines


Sometimes I just want to scream.

Three days before I turn fifty

I wake to find a headline about

actresses entitled "50-ish and Hot".

Please spare me the details of the

unnaturally erect breasts,

smooth foreheads, puffy lips,

missing crow's feet, hair extensions,

personal trainers and cooks.

Show me a women of age who

wears her wrinkles with pride,

the map of the trials she has

endured and the pain carried in silence.

Show me loose skin to tell the

tale of diets that have come and gone,

wide hips that carried children

and that have become wider to

hold grandchildren who leave jelly

stains on cheeks wet from tears of joy.

Show me gray hair, each strand

a badge of courage that stands out

to welcome another day spent

waging peace, creating a safe world,

a world fit to pass on, that carries the

mark of a life lived well by a woman

who was judged not by how "hot" she

was at fifty, but by how warm her heart

was at seventy.


xoxo
Patti