Hello, Ageing
Olderhood Unfolding, 16
I came across an article recently about “defying ageing.”
The images were full of colour. Bold clothes, bright lipstick, flamboyance. A kind of joyful rebellion against becoming invisible.
And I could see the appeal.
If ageing has felt like something that diminishes you, something that pushes you out of view, then of course you might want to push back. To be seen. To take up space.
But as I sat with it, I realised that isn’t what I’m doing.
I’m not defying ageing.
I’m not rebelling against it.
I’m doing something quieter.
I’m welcoming it.
Not in a sentimental way. Not as a performance. Just as a simple, internal shift.
Hello ageing. Come and sit beside me.
That way of relating isn’t new to me. It’s something I first encountered through deep imagery work. When something uncomfortable arises, anger, sadness, fear, the invitation is not to shut it out, but to turn towards it.
Hello anger. Why are you here?
Hello sadness. Stay a while.
There’s something powerful in that. The moment you stop pushing something away, it changes shape. It becomes something you can understand, rather than something you need to fight.
I think we do something similar with ageing, often without realising it.
We close the door.
We try not to look too closely. We tell ourselves we’re still the same as we were at forty. Or we find ways to distract attention from the changes, through busyness, through presentation, through staying brightly visible.
Or we go the other way, and begin to shrink.
Neither feels quite right to me.
What I’ve noticed is that when ageing is treated as something to resist, it quietly becomes something to fear.
And fear changes how we move through the world.
A stumble becomes “this is what happens at my age.”
A slower day becomes “I’m not what I used to be.”
But that’s not how I experience it.
If I fall over, I don’t immediately turn it into a story about ageing. I tripped. I was distracted. I was clumsy in that moment. It doesn’t need to become an identity.
That feels important.
Because the stories we attach to ageing shape how we live it.
I see this most clearly at the wood.
I’ve owned it for five years now, and in the early days I would spend full days working physically, chopping logs, moving them, stacking them. I could keep going for hours.
This past year, something has shifted.
Now I give myself around half an hour on a task. I’ll move logs, stack wood, clear branches. And then I stop.
I might sit and listen to the birds.
I might wander slowly and notice what’s changed.
I might stand still and do nothing at all.
And then, later, I return to the task.
I could push myself to do more. But at what cost?
What’s interesting is that I often get more done this way. Knowing I have a defined window, I approach it with focus, almost like a session at the gym. And when I stop, I stop properly.
It’s a different rhythm.
Not less capable. Just more attuned.
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