Once my suitor departed, I spent nearly an hour calming the critical voice within, sending it trudging back into the depths of my awareness to pace and mutter to itself. (A genuine upside of advancing years, I should mention, is acquiring the knack for handling that inner critic before it transforms into a tormentor — soothing it the way a patient handler gentles a wild horse. In my youth, such harsh self-assessments could drag me into a despairing spiral lasting days.)
This particular suitor, if I may use that word, is hardly the only man — whether younger or older — to declare fondness for me, though I imagine most of them offered it the way a person might remark, "I'm fond of tomatoes." They treasure my candor, my playfulness, my spark of wonder, my capacity for delight.
Still, this man rattled me. I possess no wish to act upon his tender confession, but it forced me to pause and reflect — on who I am, on the passage of time, on being alive.
Very well, I'll own up to it. I wrestle with ageism. I catch myself absorbing our society's narrative that decrees I am now unappealing, a crone. I've been molded by my culture and the relentless marketing that assails us, equating loveliness with a teenager of sixteen or perhaps nineteen, swathed in Victoria's Secret lace or a Calvin Klein thong, lips bee-swollen, expression sulky. Granted, she is gorgeous. She takes the breath away. Yet how is it that a man may remain desirable across his entire life while a woman cannot?
And there's last summer's research on digital matchmaking, asserting that male desirability crests at fifty, whereas for women it peaks at eighteen before sliding downward. So what, then, could it possibly mean for a woman like me, well into her eighties, to be told she remains womanly and appealing? Or to confess that I continue to find men appealing? That I delight in a little flirtation, a touch of play?
What does it mean, truly, to be a woman? What is it that draws one person to another?
At twenty, drenched in hormones and powerless to keep my gaze and trembling awareness from any boy in sight, I believed the answer lay in raw physical beauty, or sensuality, and I considered it fitting to amplify that appeal through miniskirts and gossamer fabrics. It seemed wholly about sex, nature's strategy for perpetuating the species.
Read the continuation here
Releasing Your Ideal Self
