From the Brain of Dr. Nicki: Yes You’re Getting Older! Smile!!

I’ve written often about aging. Guess it’s because…well…I am! Indeed, we ponder, teach and write about that which we need most to learn.

So here I am…aging.

Trying to make peace with it.

Trying to embrace it without surrendering to its (personal and collective) traumas and dramas.

Trying to stay visible in a world that would prefer to marginalize rather than revere the process.

Obviously being a woman in youth-centric Los Angeles doesn’t help matters. By example, many years ago (yes, even way back then!) I was shopping in a denim store on Ventura Boulevard. Now let it be understood…I’m a buyer!! A good salesperson is wise to get excited when I enter, and this particular day I was determined to buy a few new pairs of jeans.

I’d piled up numerous possibilities and was moving through the trying-on process at warp speed, which is the way I shop. It didn’t bother me much that the near forty-year old sales guy was ignoring me even though I was the only patron in the place as I knew what I wanted and was happy digging for treasure on my own.

Eventually I emerged from the dressing room to discover two cute early twenties-something girls had entered the premises. The salesman hovered attentively as their smooth, giggling fingers tickled the tee-shirts. Their demeanor clearly said: “we’re more playing than shopping and probably will buy nothing at all!” 

Meanwhile, I’d arrived at the register with a pile of items to purchase. Sales guy paid no attention.

After a head-shaking moment I called him over. As he begrudgingly left the girls -- whose emails he was trying like hell to secure -- I finally said to him:

“I realize you’re here trolling the waters for fresh fish, but it’s completely insulting to be ignored this way. Believe me if I hadn’t spent so much of my valuable time and energy trying these things on I would have walked out without buying anything! And, in fact, I shall never return.” And out I went from the store to which I’ve never been back.

This attitude is everywhere. Indeed, believe me when I tell you, the invisibility factor for people over…well, 40…is pandemic. Is it worse in California? Probably. Still, the deification of youth and proselytizing about all we need to do to be sure no one notices we’re aging, is everywhere. And perhaps worse…in a desperate attempt to refuse growing “old” there’s now a creeping, crawling nationwide tendency to refuse growing up!

We can blame it on technology turning us into comparison-making, under read, quick-fix, YouTube pandering neophytes, but I think that’s short-sighted. This tendency has been sprouting wings longer than texts, tweets, and instagrams have been running the world.

Once, increasing respect was given to the elderly. Back then we recognized that life over time imbues us with insight, foresight, and wisdom. But now is not then. Thus, in the face of our current anti-aging atmosphere, how might we graciously and gracefully embrace both growing up and growing older!?

First, we must realize what growing up means:

Freedom is what it means.

Yes, freedom.

Adulthood, in fact, translates as: towards [ad] the ultimate [ult] state of being. Yes, adulthood offers not limitation, but increased choices. Ask any twenty-five year old still living at home or being financially supported if they feel free.

Second, (and here’s the hard one), we must look in the mirror and appreciate the lines that tell our stories, the light of history that shines in our eyes, and the imperfections that report our humanity. [TweetThis]

We must realize we are being given the Blessing of a long(er) life and that for that life we can be grateful.

Last Friday I was honored to attend the burial and celebration of life for an eighty-five year old fellow whose daughter is like family to me. I’ve known them all since 1979 when I arrived in L.A. The years have flown swiftly. I watched as those Stuart Bruce Rose’s years were catalogued in a beautiful twenty minute video presentation – a portrait of the man’s (very real) ebullience about life and love. A gorgeous example to us all about living life with joy. Still, with constant welling tears I thought: “And that’s that. His life summed up!”

Yes of course Stuart lives on in the hearts and minds of those that loved him. His wife, kids, grandkids, friends. Still, let’s be real. We are here until we are not. Our lives are a brief gift we are offered. Too many squander, complain, refuse, or impugn that gift.

So here’s my final suggestion:

Grow the hell up!

And once you do: open those arms wide to the world around you. Stop focusing on the lines on your brow or the crinkling folds around your belly.

Be glad you can participate in this astonishing experiment called living!

Be glad you can participate in this astonishing experiment called living!

Be glad you can participate in this astonishing experiment called living!