One of my favorite things to do is the simple act of putting a pen to paper and just writing.
Creative Writing was my favorite subject in school, and I loved the days where we were given a prompt and asked to write freely about the topic. Pfizer is currently running a campaign called “Get Old” where they are encouraging positive conversation about aging.
This is one of the fun things about being a blogger, being asked to contribute to conversations like this. They asked me to write on the topic “How have your ideas about what it means to get old changed since you were a child?”
When I was a little girl, my Maw-maw Sybil was old. She had papery-thin skin that wrinkled around her eyes and into her shock white hair.
She walked with a limp and often times forgot the names of my cousins. “Who is that little brown haired girl playing in my yard?” she’d ask me, peering out the window suspiciously.
Sometimes she’d forget what she was talking about in the middle of a story. “You were telling me about where you lived during the Great Depression,” I’d remind her as she wove a tale of living history while teaching me how to crochet.
When I was a little girl, I just saw old.
Now I hook my yarn to make a tiny hat for a baby lying in a NICU bed, and I see a gift from a generation before me.
When I was a teenager I would wrinkle my nose as promos for romantic films featuring older actresses and actors played during the previews at the theater.
“No one wants to watch a movie about old people falling in love,” I declared.
Now I see an elderly man guiding his shaky wife by the elbow to her table and I see not movie love but real love, stood up to the passage of time love, a love that lasted.
“It’s so beautiful to see old people in love,” I say.
I just celebrated my twenty-ninth birthday. I don’t intend to celebrate it again, adding air quotes around the number as I repeat it each calendar year. No, I will not be forever twenty-nine no matter how hard the glossy covers try to convince me aging is unnatural and youth is the pathway to happiness. Because with each passing year comes wisdom and the shift in consciousness that moves us from just seeing old to appreciating that old. Gettin’ old means living!
This is what I like about the Get Old platform, that it is meant to embrace the advantages of aging. The idea that “getting old is not just about accumulating years – it’s also about gaining experiences and wisdom throughout the journey.”
And this is what I hope to cultivate in Scarlette, the knowledge that growing old gracefully isn’t something that is skin deep.
Share your thoughts on getting old and be entered to win one of three $500 SpaFinder gift cards, courtesy of BlogHer and Pfizer, entries will be pooled across participating blogs.
For your convenience, here are highlights from the Official Rules for the Sweepstakes. Please note by submitting an entry you are agreeing to the full Official Rules, available here.
No duplicate comments.
Please do not mention or imply any pharmaceutical products in your posts. Posts that mention or imply a pharmaceutical product will be subject to removal.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt at the bottom of this post.*
b) Read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
*Note: if you want to comment but either (i) are not eligible or (ii) do not want to enter the giveaway, please include something similar to the following statement in your comment: “I do not wish to enter the sweepstakes.”
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Medical professionals who are licensed (or are otherwise authorized) to prescribe medications are not eligible to enter. While BlogHer encourages you to share your thoughts and experiences about getting older, comments discussing medical conditions and/or medical products are not permitted, may be deleted, and are invalid entries. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.
This sweepstakes runs from 6/18 to 8/31.
Be sure to check out the BlogHer.com Get Old page to find out more about the Get Old platform and read how other bloggers feel about aging!
