As Evelyn Couch said to Ninny Threadgoode in Fannie Flagg’s “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe”: “I’m too young to be old and too old to be young. I just don’t fit anywhere.”
I think about this line often, this feeling of being out of place, particularly in a culture that obsessively glorifies youth and teaches us to view aging as an enemy.
No one really tells us how we’re supposed to age, how much fighting against it and how much acceptance of it is the right balance. No one tells us how we’re supposed to feel when the body grows softer and the hair grayer, how we’re supposed to consider the craping of the skin or the wrinkles on the face that make our smiles feel unfortunate.
The poet Dylan Thomas told us we should “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” that “old age should burn and rave at close of day.” He died, sadly, before turning 40.
For those of us well past that mark, rage feels futile, like a misallocation of energy. There is, after all, a beauty in aging. And aging is about more than how we look and feel in our bodies. It’s also about how the world around us plows ahead and pulls us along.
My mother, who lives alone, suffered a stroke. Luckily, one of my brothers was having breakfast with her that morning and, noticing that her speech was becoming slurred, rushed her to the emergency room.
On the flight to Louisiana, I tried in vain to remain calm, not knowing what condition she would be in when I arrived, not knowing the damage the stroke had done. When I finally laid eyes on her, it was confirmed for me how fortunate we were that my brother had been alert and acted quickly. My mother would fully recover, but the image of her in that hospital bed – diminished from the commanding, invincible image of her that had been burned into my mind – shook me and has remained with me.
In that moment, I was reminded that my mother was in the final chapter of her life, and that I was moving into a new phase of mine.
That is one of the profound, emotional parts of aging: assuming a new familial role. Recognizing that my brothers and I were graduating from being the uncles to being the elders. And I understand that the best parts of many books are their final chapters.
The actress Jenifer Lewis, appearing on the nationally syndicated radio show “The Breakfast Club,” once remarked: “I’m 61. I got about 30 more summers left.” Since hearing those words, I’ve thought of my own life in that way, in terms of how many summers I might have left. How many more times will I see the leaves sprout and the flowers bloom? How many more times will I spend a day by the pool or enjoy an ice cream on a hot day?
I don’t consider these questions because I’m worried, but because I want to remind myself to relish. Relish every summer day. Stretch them. Fill them with memories. Smile and laugh more. Gather with friends and visit family. Put my feet in the water. Grow things and grill things. I make my summers count by making them beautiful.
I have no intention of raging against my aging. I intend to embrace it, to embrace the muscle aches and the crow’s feet as the price of growing in wisdom and grace; to understand that age is not my body forsaking me but my life rewarding me.
Aging, as I see it, is a gift, and I will receive it with gratitude.
Charles Blow is an Opinion columnist for The New York Times.
