A New Mantra for Aging

I just read Nora Ephron’s new book, I Feel Bad About My Neck, and I was amazed that this famous author and screenwriter is actually my alter ego. If you’ve been reading this blog you know that my concern over my neck is second only to my concern over the loss of my eyebrows. The book touches on the losses all 50+ women are facing…the loss of perky breasts, eyebrows and, worst of all, dear friends.

Nora Ephron addresses the very personal concerns that women have about aging – concerns we may have thought were exclusively our own, until Ephron points out the fear and dread we all share over the losses yet to come.

Ephron says honestly that aging sucks. Yet she says it with such a humorous tone that we know she is not spending her remaining years locked in an apartment with 23 cats and her old Jim Croce albums. She is living life happily and productively, bringing happiness to the thousands of readers of her essays.

We have been indoctrinated to think that it’s anti-boomerlike to bash aging. We’re supposed to say things like, “I love being my age because I’m so much wiser and confident now than I was at twenty.” I’m with Ephron – I’d rather be twenty. 

But if she can admit to hating the aging process, while continuing to live life to the fullest, we all should join in with a new mantra, “I hate aging, but doggone-it, I’ll find SOMETHING to like about it.”