First time making a “personal” post and I just wanted to share some thoughts.
I find it appalling how society pressures people, especially women, to remain youthful - appear younger, have clear skin, stay the same weight since their early years. I see the effects of this on my older sister who loathes wrinkles and grey hair. She grew up with reality shows in the 2000s that highlighted appearances and superficiality, all about how to look on the outside…
I feel grateful to spend so much time with my parents (in their 50s). My mother has started growing grey hair and I find it beautiful. She, just like my father, has wrinkles and “imperfect” skin that I can’t help but admire. Wrinkles tell such a story; of the times you smiled, laughed… they tell people you have lived a life of joy.
I can’t wait until I grow older. Grow grey hair (it’s like being blonde but without the yellow… and as a brunette, it seems like such a fun shift), grow wrinkles from laughing and spending time doing things I like. I look forward to travelling in my young years and looking back on it in my older years. I can’t wait to drink coffee with fellow 60-year olds and speak of how fast the world seems to change, yet time for us moves so slowly whenever we spend time together.
I don’t know. Maybe it sounds ridiculous. But I can’t wait to grow as a person. Become 20, 30, 60… I hope one day society will embrace aging and see how pretty life can get at the later stages.
Maybe it's just how things turned out for me, but when I was younger my brain and body were stronger but things were situationally pretty bad until I got to college. Now that I'm around 30, situationally my life couldn't be better, but exercising doesn't feel good any more so it's a chore, the world is on fire just like I was warned it would be as a child, I don't have the drive to learn any more, and it feels so unfair that I don't get to experience the life I have the way I imagined because getting here took too much out of me. But hey, at least it's not bad. Maybe there's hope I "get better".
I think healthy aging is beautiful, but I don't think most people age healthy. If my wrinkles are based on the first 25 years of my life, they're going to show frustration and exhaustion. I hope your winkles do show you've lived a life of joy though. Keep up with exercise and healthy eating, that's more than half the battle
Fuck, that's relatable.
I agree that the world is getting seemingly darker by the year. I know that the political climate in many influential countries is going downhill, and how it affects the rest of us regular citizens. I think the reason I’m so optimistic is because frankly, I have wasted my teenage years and went through a deep depression a few years ago. Now I can’t get those years back, but I hope my adult life will be better; I like to think the worst for me is over, at least when it comes to mental health. I have learnt so much from my parents, I have grown, and there is no reason I won’t keep growing in the future. Life is different for everybody and I sorely wish we all could look forward to aging, but current politics makes it difficult.
I understand this. My early life was pretty bad. In my 20s, I got away from my family a lot more, and started living my life (mostly) how I wanted to. I'm in my 40s now, and I look significantly younger than most of my contemporaries. I'm not saying this to brag in any way. I'm simply trying to point out that stress and all those things in early life don't HAVE to lead to anything. They make us stronger, more resilient, and capable, as much as that sucks to have gone through.
Not trying to preach or tell you anything you likely don't already know, but as for exercising not feeling good, change it up! Find a new sport. Take a break from your usual workout. Start walking more. Look into yoga. Yoga is truly one of those things that everyone should do. It's crazy how much is affects your day to day. Everyone I know over like 30 complains about back pain, and I used to too. I have NONE (unless I do something stupid) after I started doing yoga 5 days a week.
Also, evaluate how you eat, and what you eat. I've started noticing A LOT more that what I eat the days before a workout have a much bigger impact on my workout than ever. I ate terribly this weekend, and yesterday, and my morning run was so much worse than normal today. I was dragging ass, and it was HARD, even though it was my mostly flat fast run (spoiler it wasn't fast today)